Paper Faces
by HuaFeiHua
Summary: In the summer of their second year, a masquerade ball is thrown, and both Shoto and Momo attend with thoughts of someone known on a long-ago night quite like it fresh in their minds. Will they ever find the person behind the mask?
1. Dreamscapes

**fair warning 1: i decided that todoroki has bad vision in this fic, so you will see him wear glasses a couple times. do not be alarmed. it is plot relevant.  
fair warning 2: there is side/background kamijirou, izuocha, and kiribaku, but except for kmjr they don't show up until the last chapter. compared to the rest of the fic, which is entirely todomomo, it's just drops in a bucket.**

* * *

**Word Count: **5,384

* * *

**? ? ?, ? ? ? p.m.  
**_**t₁ = ? ? ?**_

* * *

_This was _booooring. _What did grown-ups like about dressing up in tight, itchy clothes and then standing around in a big, tall room where running and shouting wasn't even allowed? _

_Shoto huffed as he crossed his little arms and stood in the corner. Why was he even here? It wasn't like he _wanted _to be toted around by his father all the time. No, thank you; he spent more than enough time with that man every other day of the week. So why were they all at one of Father's grown-up events? It wasn't like there was anyone his age around. _

_Mama wasn't even here for him to latch onto; she'd gone visiting Grandmama and wouldn't be back for another week._

_This sucked._

"_Hi!"_

_Shoto flinched, hurrying to cover his ear; whoever had just spoken had done so right into his ear. He turned to look at the stranger who had so loudly greeted him and found himself face-to-face with… a girl who was actually his age? He wasn't sure if he should be confused or grateful, so he was neither. He simply stared at her, utterly blank._

"_My name is _**[underwater]**_," she said, voice garbling and distorting when she introduced herself. She sounded much the way she looked, throwing her tiny weight around in a dramatic sway, likely to burn off some of that extra energy that always seemed to pop up when adults said to behave. "What's yours? I've not seen you around here before."_

"_Shoto," he answered, just a little bit begrudgingly. He looked away, disliking the intensity of her stare, but all that served was to surprise him when she grabbed hold of his hand and unceremoniously began dragging him out of his corner and away from the party._

"_Hey!" he cried, but he found himself not particularly willing to dig in his heels about any of it, so when she slowed down and gave him a look of concern, he just brushed it off as surprise. _

_Time suddenly became a blur, and the next thing he knew, she pulled something out and pressed it into his hands, proclaiming it to be the only thing she could make that was appropriate right now, but someday she'd find him again and give him something better. _

"_We're friends now," she said._

Shoto woke up.

* * *

**Friday, 2:23 a.m.  
**_**t₁ = —15 days**_

The dream itself wasn't unusual. Shoto just hadn't had it in a long, long time; not since starting middle school, if he had to guess.

He stared at his hands (despite the moonless night leaving very little to be stared at), unblinking. Had that event been real, or had he simply dreamt it so many times since childhood that it merely _felt_ real now, when the haze of the progressing years blurred the line between truth and dreams?

Suddenly, Shoto wondered if he still had that trinket the mystery girl had given him all that time ago (if it had ever existed at all). He didn't yet have a scar in those dreams, so it must have been forever since that night (if it had ever happened at all). Fuyumi would probably know more— it seemed too close to the time his mother burned him for him to want to bother her about it (if it had ever been real at all).

Still, it was half past two in the morning, and today was the last day of school before break began. It would be good of him to get some sleep, so Shoto lay back down and tried.

* * *

**Friday, 7:45 a.m.  
**_**t₁ = —15 days**_

Momo couldn't really remember the face of the first friend she'd ever had anymore. It was the best she could muster to memory to see him standing off in the corner by himself, staring at the main party like a dead fish before she approached him.

But, Momo supposed more than ten years after the fact, maybe it was okay to forget. Maybe it was even normal. It probably was. After all, childhood amnesia was a perfectly common thing. Maybe it was time to let go of looking for him.

She sighed (for what, she didn't really know) and propped her chin upon her elbow, ready to let her mind begin to wander, but a certain someone happened to plunk themselves down onto her desk, wholly derailing her train of thought before it even left the station.

"Yao~mo~mo~" Kyouka sing-songed. "Are you free in, like, two weeks?"

"Two weeks?" Momo weakly echoed, trying to mentally run through her calendar for the summer break and failing to bring up anything but a blue screen.

"Yeah, so like after the summer camp and class outing, but before we have to start feeling guilty about procrastinating on the summer homework," Kyouka continued.

"Two weeks, two weeks," Momo said, tapping her finger against her chin. Surely there was something happening in her life two Saturdays from now? She was thinking about something similar just a momen— "Oh! Sorry, Kyo, I can't. My parents are throwing a ball that evening."

Kyouka sighed, resigned to this fate. She knew (of _course_ she knew) Momo held filial piety in a pretty high regard, and there wasn't much point to fighting it.

Of course, now that Momo had her thoughts back on track, she found herself wandering forward in time and wondering what the summer might bring. "Do you think I might see him there?" The question popped out of her mouth like a dream popped out of one's subconscious, but she didn't much mind.

Kyouka looked at her with an eyebrow half-raised. It was rare for Momo to speak explicitly of her mystery boy from so long ago, but she had mentioned dreaming of him in the past. That combined with the topic at hand made it less surprising for her to think of him now.

_Would _she see him there? It was hard to say. After all, ten years (plus some) between meetings left a lot of room for uncertainty about the other party. Perhaps they moved to America, or fell out of favor with the Yaoyorozus, or almost anything, really. Young children (or even teenagers, for that matter) are rarely told anything of family affairs, nevermind family friends'.

But before Kyouka could point any of these things out, the classroom door rattled open, and Aizawa-sensei hopped in wearing his sleeping bag. "I know it's the last day before summer break, but if you would all _please_ get back to your assigned seats for the day to begin, that would be great," he drawled.

Quickly, Kyouka hopped off of Momo's desk, and the latter was forced to draw herself out of her own little world and into the real one once more.

* * *

**Sunday, 9:38 p.m.  
**_**t₁ = —13 days **_

"Mother, are you going to tell me the theme of this summer's party yet?" Momo asked, patience soaked into her voice. Of course, she had very low expectations for receiving an answer; her mother loved to keep Momo in the dark about the type of parties that approached until at minimum a week before.

"Hmm, well, I do suppose it would do a bit of good to let you in on the secret a bit early this time," Mrs. Yaoyorozu hummed, exceeding all of Momo's expectations. According to her observations, the number of days before the party she was told of the theme was directly proportional to the amount of pre-party prepping required, which meant that this round was about to be unfathomably fancy. Mrs. Yaoyorozu beckoned her daughter closer, an unreadable smile upon her face.

Momo obeyed, albeit rather worriedly.

"This summer's party is going to be a _masquerade ball!"_ her mother declared, very visibly excited.

Momo gave her mother a bizarre expression as the latter rose to her full height, a dreamy expression taking over her face as she began to gush about how she and her husband had met at a masquerade ball thrown by her _own_ parents one summer many years ago now. Of course, Momo knew this story— she had heard it many times since she was a child— but that didn't explain why she was being told this soon.

"Mother," Momo began yet again, still full of the infinite respect expected of a perfectly filial daughter, "Not that I'm complaining, but might I ask why you've chosen to tell me so soon?"

Mrs. Yaoyorozu smiled graciously down upon her daughter, her hands landing on her hips in a very maternal manner. "Your second summer camp is coming up soon, and I wanted to give you something to look forward to during all your hard training." Her smile flickered for a second, but not in the sense that it would give way to some horror. Instead, Momo's mother appeared to be holding back her mirth as she continued: "Plus, a family that hasn't attended one of our parties in a _very long time_ is coming this time, and I'm pretty sure they have someone your age who goes to your school…"

"Mother, I've met people at school who have been to our parties before," Momo said.

"Oh, but this one was so long ago, I don't know if you really remember them," Mrs. Yaoyorozu slyly continued.

Momo immediately and without realizing it took the bait. Her eyes lit up, and her entire presence seemed to float just a few smidgens higher. "Who are they, Mother?" she asked, suddenly losing all of her ladylike poise. "What's their name?"

Mrs. Yaoyorozu laughed, and Momo suddenly became keenly aware of the way she had allowed her grace to slip. Blushing, she set her heels back down on earth and repeated her question, more demurely this time: "Who do you speak of, Mother?"

But Mama Yaoyorozu merely patted her daughter's cheek and said, "Now, if I told you _that, _it would ruin the spirit of the ball, now wouldn't it?"

Momo fought the temptation to puff her cheeks out and pout like she had when she was younger. "I suppose you're right," she sighed.

"Exactly," Mrs. Yaoyorozu said, still quite amused. "Now, run along, my dear; there's so much more I have to plan that you can't know about yet~ "

* * *

**? ? ?, ? ? ? p.m.  
**_**t₁ = ? ? ?**_

_Shoto wasn't particularly sure what to do at dance parties. He didn't even know how he'd ended up at this one, honestly. It honestly rather felt like the scenery around him had simply all melted away and dropped him into this new setting. _

_He crept slowly towards the ballroom wall and hid himself behind one of those fancy pillars all ballrooms always seem to have. He had no idea what he was going to do now that he was hidden, but anything felt better than just standing out in the open. He always felt out of place at expensive parties like these, an awkwardness which doubled if he felt his natural appearance was drawing attention._

_With a sigh, Shoto settled down facing the wall and closed his eyes, resigned to simply ride out whatever this event was. _

"_Hey," said someone from the other side of the pillar. Their voice was soft and gentle, and it had a bit of a lilt to it that made it sound melodic, but not sing-song. They came around the pillar until they stood almost right beside him, their playful movements made apparent by the swishing of their dress. _

_Shoto hesitated for a moment but eventually shifted in the stranger's direction, although he made the decision to keep his eyes on their shoes, which barely peeked out from beneath the hem of their dress. "Hey," he returned, voice entirely deadpan._

_The stranger laughed, and he decided it was probably a girl from the sound of it. "You're missing something," she said as she pulled an old, faded, false flower out from somewhere and pinned it to his breast pocket. "There we go. It looks nice on you,—"_

* * *

**Thursday, 1:17 p.m.  
**_**t₁ = —9 days**_

_Knock-knock-knock. _"Shoto?" Fuyumi called from outside his room door. "It's after one. I know you had some intense few days at camp, but you should be awake by now."

"What is it?" he called back, groggily reaching his hand out to find his spare glasses.

"I'm coming in, okay?"

"Sure." Shoto located the glasses, sat up, and squinted at his sister as she entered the room.

"We got an invitation to attend a ball next Saturday," Fuyumi explained, waving around what appeared to be an embossed letter. "I wanna go, since Dad never took us to any of these after putting Mom in the hospital, and I was wondering if you wanted to come too, since it's addressed to the whole family."

Shoto stared down at his hands, not feeling particularly compelled to attend. But then, he remembered the dream he had just woken up from, and said, "Oh. Maybe."

"The invitation got forwarded to us from Dad's house, so we kiiind of need to mail the reply today in order to meet the RSVP deadline," Fuyumi said nervously. "C'mon, it'll be fun! Just like old times, Sho."

Shoto looked at his sister, vaguely confused. "We went to those kinds of things before?"

Fuyumi rubbed the back of her neck and laughed a bit nervously. "Well, yeah, like ten years ago now. I guess you wouldn't remember since you were so little when we stopped going to private events like these."

"No, I… _think_ I remember some parts," Shoto slowly said. "Do you remember if I ever came back from one with a false flower?"

Fuyumi's arms dropped down from her neck, and she crossed them over her chest as she thought about Shoto's question for a minute. "I don't actually remember. You should ask Mom when you visit her tomorrow. She's got a crazy good memory."

Shoto remembered that, of course, but he didn't say anything. "Fine, I will. You can go away now; I have some homework to start on."

"Have fun~" Fuyumi sang, and danced out the door.

* * *

**Saturday, 10:00 a.m.  
**_**t₁ = —7 days**_

Shoto checked his phone a moment before entering his mother's ward and decided to mute the class group chat for the time being. He'd noticed that despite being high school second years, a lot of his classmates still liked to play large-scale kid games when they went on class outings. In fact, his notifications were already blowing up because they had misplaced Shinsou during hide-and-seek or something. Definitely not something he wanted to concern himself with.

He tucked his phone into his pocket and opened the door. "Good morning," he said, poking his head inside. "I'm here again."

His mother looked up from her book and smiled at him. "Good morning, Shoto," she said as he walked in. "How was your training camp?"

"Fine. Someone accidentally crushed one of my contacts on the last day, though, so I have to wear some old, colored ones the optometrist insisted on a few years ago," he said, folding his arms and leaning against the wall.

"Oh? Then what's with the glasses?" his mother asked, finally closing her book and putting it back on the nearby table.

Shoto looked away, feeling a little annoyed. "My eyes itch if I wear them for too long."

His mother sighed good-naturedly, shaking her head. "You'll never get used to the replacements if you let that bother you."

"…Anyway," Shoto said, shifting his weight around and deciding it was time to change the subject. "Fuyumi told me we got an invitation to a fancy party next Saturday."

"Oh yes, we went to those quite a lot; I remember. What's the theme this time, do you know?"

"She said it was a masquerade ball."

His mother hummed. "That sounds like fun. I'd love to go, but at the rate the paperwork has been going, it doesn't look like I'll be getting out until next month." She stared out the window, musing for a moment, then faced Shoto again. "You'll be going though, won't you?"

"Yeah. It's in the evening, so I'll still be able to visit you in the morning."

"Don't be silly! Just tell me about all the fun you'll have had when you visit the morning after," his mother insisted. "I'll be out sooner than you'll feel real. There will be plenty of time for you to see me when I'm living at home. You should be out enjoying your youth more!"

Shoto cocked his head but otherwise wasn't particularly bothered. He supposed she was right, and he'd do it if she insisted. In any case, he had a different fish to fry in his mind. "Oh, that kind of reminds me. Did I ever come back from one of those parties with a fake flower when I was younger?"

His mother paused and thought about it for all of a minute. "Yes, I think so. It was around the time you turned five, so I wasn't well enough to go myself, but there was one time when you came home with something like that, I'm pretty sure. Why do you ask?"

Shoto found himself looking away, his face feeling oddly flushed. "I've been having strange dreams lately."

"I'm listening."

He kind of wished she wasn't; he'd rather just leave it at that. But, he told his mother about his latest dreams, mysterious girl and all, with little reluctance.

"I see. So, are you hoping to see her again at the party?" she asked, a strange gleam of mischief in her eyes.

"I mean. I guess," he said, and really, what other reason would he have for asking about such a minor detail from over a decade ago?"I had dreams like these for a while in middle school, I think. It was a long phase in my first year."

His mother nodded somberly. "Dream girls are serious business, Shoto," she said. "Especially when they were, and presumably still are, real girls at some point."

Shoto grunted in response, and his mother smiled once more, letting a little laughter escape.

"You should find her again! It would be a good summer adventure."

"But it's a masked ball," Shoto pointed out. "Even if I find her again, how am I going to know it's her? How will I know who she is? How will I find her again?"

"Well, there are three things you can do to answer your three questions," his mother answered. "Firstly, you need to actively search around. You can't just expect her to come find you. Listen to your heart as you encounter new people; it remembers people better than your mind. If you think you've found her, believe in your heart."

Shoto sighed, sticking his hands into his pockets. "That sounds like something out of a fairy tale."

"Sometimes, there's no real or logical way of finding an answer to a question. It's at those times when we must forgo logic and simply do what feels right," his mother said, almost grave in her seriousness. _(Almost, _because her eyes were still alight with a youthful sort of excitement that was rare in women her age.)

She cracked a smile after a moment of silence. "Secondly," she continued, holding up two fingers now, "You probably _won't_ know who she is, as is the point of masquerades. It's simply something you'll have to work around and work hard to figure out, if you cared enough to know."

Shoto said nothing, but it appeared that his silence only served to amuse his mother further.

"Thirdly, to find her, you simply have to give her something to remember you by, and then search the world around you for signs of her afterwards."

Shoto furrowed his brow. "What do I have to give that would let me find her?"

"There's a ring I bought with my first paycheck when I was your age. Bring that along with you, and if you find her there at the party, I want you to give it to her."

"It's not exactly a small world, Mom. I don't know how a ring will help me find her after the party's over."

"Maybe it won't at first," his mother agreed. "Maybe you'll simply have to wait until you're invited to another party, or the one after that if she's not there, or the one after that, or so on, when everyone is simply their own selves. But—" there was an unreadable expression that passed over her face for a moment— "I have a hunch it won't take that long."

Shoto decided he didn't want to ask any further and changed the subject.

* * *

**Sunday, 3:02 p.m.  
**_**t₁ = —6 days**_

[15:02]

_[Kyoukanut]: hey yaomomo can you help me translate this song later  
__[Kyoukanut]: it's called "long way home" by jukebox the ghost  
__[Kyoukanut]: i really like the way it sounds and i wanna know what it's about_

_**[Yaomomo **_**_(✿◡‿◡)]: _**_**I'm free now, actually  
**__**[Yaomomo **_**_(✿◡‿◡)]: _**_**Just give me a few minutes to listen to it**_

_[Kyoukanut]: tyyyyyy~~~  
__[Kyoukanut]: btw i forgot to ask abt this last night but  
__[Kyoukanut]: why'd you walk todoroki home yesterday_

[16:54]

_**[Yaomomo **_**_(✿◡‿◡)]: _**_**I found him fallen asleep at the train station  
**__**[Yaomomo **_**_(✿◡‿◡)]: _**_**So I offered to see him home safely**_

_[Kyoukanut]: 1. that was a very long pause_

_**[Yaomomo **_**_(✿◡‿◡)]: _**_**Besides, how did you even know about that?**_

_[Kyoukanut]: 2. wao yaomomo such a gentleman~_

_**[Yaomomo **_**_(✿◡‿◡)]: _**_**I was looking through some of my dictionaries to help with the translation and got distracted**_

_[Kyoukanut]: 2.5: I saw some of his head in the corner of one of your pictures out the window on the train ride home and took a wild guess  
__[Kyoukanut]: and 3. c:  
__[Kyoukanut]: oh yeah that_

_**[Yaomomo **_**_(✿◡‿◡)]: _**…  
_**[Yaomomo **_**_(✿◡‿◡)]: _**_**Should I be worried about that face you're making?**_

_[Kyoukanut]: no not at all_

_[Kyoukanut]: ( •̀ ω •́ )y_

_**[Yaomomo **_**_(✿◡‿◡)]: _**_**Oh  
**__**[Yaomomo **_**_(✿◡‿◡)]: _**_**Well, back to the translation**_

_[Kyoukanut]: just know that i'm rooting for you_

_**[Yaomomo **_**_(✿◡‿◡)]: _**_**My relationship with Todoroki isn't like that**_

_[Kyoukanut]: ( •̀ ω •́ )y  
__[Kyoukanut]: ( •̀ ω •́ )y_

_**[Yaomomo **_**_(✿◡‿◡)]: _**_**So the song is about meeting an old friend again and, despite the late hour, deciding to take the scenic route home in order to delay their parting**_

* * *

**Tuesday, 7:44 p.m.**

_**t₁ = —4 days**_

Momo studied the wine red gown laid out on her bed, something feeling strangely wrong about her choice. It fit her, and it looked nice on her (she knew these things for sure because she had just tried it on) and yet she couldn't shake the feeling that it wasn't appropriate for the upcoming ball.

With a sigh, Momo removed the pins from her hasty hair mockup and felt the swish of her hair brush against her shoulders as it all tumbled down. She gently placed the pins on her nightstand and immediately began combing her fingers through her hair.

What could be wrong? What could be wrong? She could only wonder as she turned to search through her closet once more.

Momo paused just a moment in, her delicate brow furrowing as she pursed her lips and realized, for the very first time, that she wore an awful lot of reds and pinks to parties. It seemed as if she'd always favored those colors, and not to say that she was tired of them (oh no, not at all), but maybe it was time to mix things up?

She hummed and cracked her knuckles. Her mother had told her earlier in the day that a few new outfits had arrived over the course of the semester, and there felt like no better time than the present to take a pretty gander at them.

Most of them were dresses, of course, but the majority of those weren't ball gowns, and as such, they were put aside immediately for later in the summer, when the dress code wasn't so lofty. However, there was at least one dress that was sufficiently suited for the upcoming event— at least, and not for sure, because the moment she saw it, Momo stopped searching.

She reached out and gently took the dress off its hanger. It was a pretty, blue thing, with a long, richly-embroidered skirt that faintly shimmered in the dim closet light. Trying it on, she found was soft and light and wonderfully easy to move around in, almost like wearing a cloud. It was perfect.

In short order, she had it replace the red gown on her bed, and Momo was once again smiling to herself as she bustled about, figuring out the rest of her outfit-to-be for that night.

Once the sun had set and twilight set in, Momo paused, staring out the window at the moon as she rose over the horizon. Then suddenly, she shuddered all over.

Something major was going to happen, it seemed.

(Was she ready for it?)

* * *

**Thursday, 6:56 a.m.  
**_**t₁ = —2 days**_

Shoto wasn't sure how to feel about returning to the old house again. He stood outside the doorway, gripping its key as if doing so would help him keep hold of his own mind. Sure, it had hardly been two weeks since moving, but it had been even longer since he'd stepped foot inside, thanks to the dorms.

"Third row from the top, rightmost drawer, in the black box with the golden clasp," he said, verbalizing his thoughts to keep his memory from slipping away.

It really sucked that everyone had forgotten to move his mother's things from the attic and into the new home. But, it was just going to be something he had to deal with right now, so with a sigh, Shoto unlocked the front door and walked inside.

All the lights were out.

(Good; that meant no one was home.)

"I'm back," Shoto whispered under his breath as he took off his shoes. He didn't bother to turn the lights back on as he crept through the empty halls; he knew its layout like the back of his hand and could navigate the place blindfolded.

The old, wooden walls creaked and groaned as the wind blew outside, but they were the only sounds in the house. Not even Shoto could hear his own footsteps, as was his lifelong habit.

Eventually, he found it, the door designed such that it blended in almost perfectly with the walls, hiding the set of stairs he had always walked by but never up.

"Third row from the top, rightmost drawer, in the black box with the golden clasp," he repeated to himself, under his breath this time, to calm his restless nerves as he pulled the door open. Surprisingly, it was silent, and the staircase behind it, while leading into pitch black, seemed well-maintained.

He wasn't sure what else he had been expecting, so he decided not to think too hard about it and just walk up the stairs.

He was in uncharted territory now, so the darkness _did_ unsettle him now. He tiptoed up the stairs, his heart skipping a beat when there were no more stairs to go up.

"Third row from the top, rightmost drawer, in the black box with the golden clasp." He mouthed it this time, too afraid of disturbing the stiff air in the attic to even take another step forward.

Several minutes passed, and his eyes adjusted to the dark enough to spot a sliver of light peeking through the wall. Finally, a _window._

Shoto crept blindly toward the light, a little concerned at the lack of objects in his path. However, once he got to the window, opened the shutters, and let all the morning light stream in, he found that there was simply a path to the window that cut through all of the attic's clutter.

It was a _lot_ of clutter.

He had not been expecting so many things to be squirrelled away in the attic.

"Jewelry box," he said out loud, reminding himself of his quest. "Third row from the top, rightmost drawer, in the black box with the golden clasp."

How does one organize an attic? Shoto had no idea, so he simply began his search by pushing away the nearest box and wade deeper into the mess. The next step was to push away the box behind the last, and then the box behind that, and then the box behind that…

There was too much dust for most of it to fly too far up. Instead, most of it clumped up into terrible wads of fake lint that stuck to everything with a static charge. Shoto found himself constantly shaking clumps of them out of his clothes as he scoured the attic until at one point, he found a particularly large one on the floor in a place that had been the crack between two boxes until a few seconds ago.

Repulsed, yet still overcome with morbid curiosity, Shoto picked it up to find that it was not actually an exceptionally large dust bunny, but instead, something else he couldn't yet identify.

He shook it out, displeased at the amount of dust it displaced. "Oh?" he said aloud, for underneath the shell of dead skin and microscopic dirt particles, was a fake flower. Its petals were faded, frayed, and ratty, but still clearly some sort of flower.

No way. There was no way it was the flower from eleven years ago. Unless…

There had only ever been real plants in the Todoroki home.

Shoto stared at the cloth and plastic creation in his hand. The girl he'd dreamt of for so long was real. Those dreams had been made of memories all along. Mostly. There were still the times when they seemed to be current-age, but those didn't matter. She was _real_ and—

He sneezed, the dust having tickled his nose for too long now, and his entire train of thought was wiped out as a result. Shoto's eyes watered from the sudden dust cloud that had come out of the flower, so he pocketed the treasure and went back to searching for his mother's old ring.

It wasn't long before he stumbled upon the jewelry box nestled between a stack of leather-bound books and a half-open box of clothes. However, Shoto didn't have the time to be reverent with finding the ring box, for just outside the window, he heard someone lumbering through the courtyard towards the house.

As quickly as he could, Shoto yanked open the proper drawer, scooped up the only black box that sat inside, and stuffed said box into his pocket so that he could vault over all the crap in the attic and _get the fuck out of this house._

He sprinted down the stairwell, rushed all the way through the halls, and barely managed to snatch up his shoes when the front door opened.

Shoto narrowed his eyes at the massive figure that walked in and tightened his grip on his shoes.

His father looked down at him and looked like he was about to speak.

"Bye," Shoto said, sprinting barefoot out the door.

* * *

**Friday, 4:13 p.m.  
**_**t₁ = —1 day**_

He hadn't had the ring for much longer than a day, and yet Shoto was once again taking it out of its box to look at the sapphire as it glittered in the light. It was a nice ring; he hoped to see it again after tomorrow night.

Shoto lay his head on his arm, still staring at the ring. Just one more day.

He wondered what would happen.

* * *

**_Author's Note i. _**_oh my god i'm publishing something longer than 1.2k words it's a post-2019 miracle! ! ! and what's that? ? ? ? i have the rest of the fic already written and have an update schedule in mind? ? ? ? ? well how about that_

_for real tho i wrote basically nothing in all of 2019. what a depressing year. everything i wrote that year was out of spite for someone who once told me no one would ever read what i write. (i'm not very productive on spite, as you can see) i actually was only able to start this bc someone decided to comment on every chapter of one of my other fics, orchid, and i was suddenly filled with a mighty desire to write more fic because oh my god, people read my stuff and have thoughts on it. so, you all have stardust_make_a_wish on ao3 to thank for this._

_anyway is the writing in this fic any good? idk. you tell me. no, really, don't be afraid to tell me i suck and list all the details why. i haven't written this much for these characters in about a year, so i am definitely going to have characterization and pacing issues. ofc this being prewritten, there's not much i can do to fix those kinds of big problems, but i just want some good concrit for next time because i am shooting for a next time. *finger guns*_

_thank you so much for reading! please leave reviews, and as always, have a greaaaaaat daaaayyy~~~_


	2. Preparations

**oh! so fencer29 reminded me that i probably have non-manga readers reading this, so just as clarification, the todoroki siblings live separately from their father.**

* * *

**Word Count: **5,373

* * *

**? ? ?, ? ? ? p.m.  
**_**t₁ = ? ? ?**_

_Time puts a fog over your memories. Ten years ago might not have been a masquerade ball, but with how long ago it had been, it very might as well have been. _

_It was not uncommon for Momo to dream lucidly, which was why despite recognizing the scene, she didn't wake up. _

"_Well, now this has been happening a lot lately, hasn't it," she said to herself, except that no one else in the room seemed to hear. That was normal. _

_She was in the west ballroom of her home, and it was decked out in its entirety in ever-blurring, ever-shifting, but still otherwise pretty normal party décor. She scoped the room, feeling like all the parties she'd attended in the past were all blending together into this one party of her dreams, searching for that friend from a time gone by. He was always there when she dreamed of being younger, but occasionally, she found a version of him the same age as she was at the time, his face and overall appearance always frustratingly indistinct. _

_Eventually, she decided her sleeping brain wasn't going to do her any favors, and with a disappointed sigh, she headed to the balcony, where she could be alone. _

_Or so she thought. _

"_Found you," she said to the boy leaning on the rail, somehow knowing who he was just by the feeling in her heart. _

_Her old friend turned around, his appearance startlingly clearer than normal. She supposed that it must have shown on her face because he tilted his head at her, though his expression was frustratingly hard to decipher with the half-mask covering the left side of his face._

_She stilled for a moment, though in the world of her dream, the ball kept twirling._

_He was wearing a mask._

_She lifted a hand to her mouth to keep it from falling open, and her fingers brushed against something fitted to her own face._

She _was wearing a mask._

_What had earlier felt like a sign from above telling her she was going to attend one more party in vain suddenly turned into a wild hope bursting forth in her chest, blossoming in her heart like a fresh spring rose and filling her all over with a drunken excitement. Could it be? She hoped with all her might it was. _

_She wanted to speak again, to ask how he's been even though this was only a dream, but—_

* * *

**Saturday, 8:22 a.m.  
**_**t₁ = —11 hours**_

Momo bolted upright from her dream, breathing hard and filled with a residual panic, as though she had just come from some crazed nightmare.

But it hadn't been.

The morning sunlight streamed into her room, dappling her bed with its warm, bright spots. Her room was quiet, save for the singing of the birds outside her window and the swishing of the curtains as they danced in the breeze. The low hum of the vacuum and the maid using it out in the hall grew nearer and nearer, but Momo simply sat still in her bed, tense as the second she woke up.

Her dream.

She allowed herself to relax and shift her position so that her legs hung off the edge of her bed.

Was it a sign of things to come? She couldn't help but want for it to have been more than just a coincidence. It was a mystery that might as well have spanned her whole lifetime, a mystery whose answer she literally dreamt of for years.

She had been staring down at her palms, laid upon her lap, but the sound of a chipper little birdsong brought her chin up. She stared at the little songbird perched out on her windowsill and let the time slip by.

It felt both far too soon and yet also forever when a maid knocked smartly on the door, causing the bird to take flight.

"Miss Momo?" the servant called out. "It's quarter to nine. Please wake up now so that we can begin your ball preparations by ten."

At long last, Momo stood up and went to open the door.

* * *

**Saturday, 9:40 a.m.  
**_**t₁ = —10 hours**_

It felt weird waking up on a Saturday and _not_ getting ready to go visit his mother. Sure, he was getting ready for something (he didn't know why, since they weren't going to leave for several hours), but it was obviously not the same.

Shoto wandered into the kitchen, still feeling at least a little bit asleep. He ignored Fuyumi as she ran around in the background and went straight for the fridge. Leftover rice wasn't all that good, but not only had Fuyumi told him there was going to be food at the party, but also he just couldn't be bothered at the moment. It had been yet another one of those nights dreaming of _her, _which by this point were starting to make him nervous for tonight.

He was about to close the refrigerator door when he noticed something weird in it. "Fuyumi, why are there flowers in the fridge?" he called.

"It's a corsage, Shoto," she called back. "Mom told me to buy one for you to give to someone."

Shoto shut the door, fighting the temptation to heave an exasperated sigh. Just what was it that his mother knew that made her so sure he would find this dream girl?

Unless she secretly controlled fate and stuff like that. Which would possibly explain the dream he had last night where he met her at a masquerade ball. And probably all her fairy-tale-esque advice.

(Oh god, his mother was a weaver of fates.)

(Except that she probably wouldn't have put herself in the hospital if she had control over that so oh god, his mother was a weaver of her children's fates.)

* * *

**Saturday, 1:11 p.m.  
**_**t₁ = —6 hours**_

_Eat well; you have a busy day and night ahead of you._

Momo carefully maneuvered another chopstickful of rice into her mouth as she waited for the conditioner to set in her hair. Nearby, maids scurried around, doing spot checks on each other's makeup as they too prepared for the ball.

It was all starting to feel real, but not real. Her mother's summer parties always felt so far-off until the day of, when the entire house suddenly bustled to life as last minute details were settled and everyone prepared for hosting.

Yet this time, Momo had something in particular to look forward to that had yielded nothing but dead ends and disappointments for so long, it felt unreal to have her intuition tell her tonight was going to be different.

She popped another bit of rice into her mouth.

Real, but unreal. Like her dream last night, the boy she had befriended years ago, and whatever her mind fancied would happen once they meet again.

"All right, I'm back now, Miss," a servant said, and Momo had to rein in the instinct to turn to the person speaking. "It's time to get this hair train going again."

Hastily, she set her bowl onto her lap and swallowed. "Oh, Marika," she said, recognizing one of the older servants' voices.

"Yes, it's me," Marika replied, her voice an equal mix of fondness and exasperation. "Now, lift your head up for a moment now, Miss. We don't want your hair getting caught in the drain."

Momo obeyed, taking the opportunity to inhale a sizable portion of her meal the way she did at school.

"The girls are all so excited for you tonight, Miss," Marika said whilst rinsing out Momo's hair, completely ignoring the young lady's egregious breach of etiquette. "They've been hearing things from us older employees lately, and when you combine that with letting the younger ones sort the RSVPs this time, why, you end up with a real hotbed for gossip."

"Marika-san, are you saying you know who my first friend had been?" Momo asked, but Marika simply tut-tutted at her.

"Don't you '_Marika-san'_ me. Buttering me up like that isn't going to make me tell you anything," she chided. "Sit back again."

"Still, does this mean you knew?"

"Child! I've worked here since you were but a twinkle in your papa's eye; of course I know!" Marika began gently combing Momo's hair. "I know almost everything that goes on in this household. For example, I know that almost all the hands in the house will be in the west wing tonight, and that once the first dance begins, there will be no one spare to watch the door for stragglers, and that our shorthandedness will likely peak after the third hour due to the unholy amount of dishes there will be to attend to."

Ah, there were Marika's true intentions. She was really pulling out all the stops for this one, wasn't she? "Oh, those poor younger maids, too busy to watch me and see for themselves what'll happen to me tonight," Momo commented.

"I didn't say _anything," _Marika said.

* * *

**Saturday, 3:29 p.m.  
**_**t₁ = —4 hours**_

"Shoto," Natsuo called. "Have you seen the mask I wore for that _Phantom of the Opera_ cosplay I did when I was your—" He stopped dead upon poking his head into the open restroom.

Shoto stared back at his brother, hair pulled back with bobby pins and face half obscured by the aforementioned _Phantom of the Opera_ mask. "…Yeah," he said.

Natsuo folded his arms. "I do believe I have that figured out," he dryly said. "Give it back."

"No. I don't have anything."

"And you think _I do?"_

"Hey guys, we're leaving in half an hour!" Fuyumi shouted from several rooms away. "How close are you to ready?"

"Mimiiii, Shoto has my mask!" Natsuo shouted back, as if he were a picky preteen and not, in fact, twenty years old.

(Well, it was the first time any of them had done anything like this since they were literal children, so maybe it was simply a brief relapse based on old memories.)

"You mean the cosplay one?"

"Yeah!"

Fuyumi came over from down the hall. "I gave that to him. There's no other way to hide his scar and preserve the spirit of the masquerade." She peered into the bathroom herself and sighed. "Shoto, you have to put in your contacts in _before _you put the mask on."

"I know that," Shoto said, irritated. "I don't want to wear them."

"How are you going to _see?"_

Shoto pulled his glasses out of his pocket and put them on over the mask.

All three Todoroki siblings were silent for a full minute.

Then the glasses slid off of Shoto's face because the mask left nowhere for the bridge to rest.

"Put on the contacts," Fuyumi sternly said, and Shoto sighed. "Also, put the wig on. There might be media lurking, and I don't want them to be able to spot you from a mile away."

"Oh, like that's the only reason they'd recognize him," Natsuo said, crossing his arms.

"Well, it's definitely the biggest reason. They would eat him alive for being a UA student, and you know it! Now, I'll be right back with hair spray."

"Wait, what about _my_ mask?" Natsuo asked, following her.

"I don't know! Figure something out!"

As their voices grew quieter, Shoto took his spare moment as an opportunity to pull his mother's ring out of his pocket again. He was a little afraid of losing it, since he was leaving the box at home, but looking at it calmed him back down again.

He somewhat wished he didn't have to take all these extra steps to disguise his appearance. It wouldn't exactly work in his favor later on, either, when he searched for dream girl after the fact.

He pocketed the ring again. _Mom, why did you have to make all this so difficult?_

* * *

**Saturday, 4:13 p.m.  
**_**t₁ = —3 hours**_

The ride there was silent.

"I feel like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle," Natsuo said to no one in particular for the billionth time.

…_Mostly _silent.

"Mimi, you're sure this isn't going to be against the dress code, right?"

Shoto looked up from his text conversation with Midoriya, Iida, and Uraraka. (They were having a horror movie marathon and had _insisted _on keeping him posted.) There was no way this wasn't going to lead to sibling shenaniganery he wanted no part of. Again.

"No, Natsuo, I _don't _know if they'll let you walk into a masquerade ball wearing an old Stain mask. But you are going to try."

Well, at least the mask fiasco had gotten _resolved._ That was all Shoto needed from either of them tonight.

* * *

**Saturday, 4:46 p.m.  
**_**t₁ = —3 hours**_

"All right, there's just one more thing for you, and then you'll be done, Miss," said Marika as she finished her final once-over, and she scurried out the door to fetch it.

Momo smoothed out her skirt, more out of habit than necessity, desperately trying to ignore the fluttering in her stomach and her heart. She picked up her mask from its place on the dresser before her terror could overtake her, running her fingers over its black ribbon ties to calm herself.

Less than fifteen minutes until the party officially started.

Momo forced herself to slow her breathing.

Suddenly, her phone vibrated. She'd have to turn that off soon, but since she had the time now, she checked to see what it was anyway.

[16:46]

_[Kyoukanut]: hey hey how's the party_

_**[Yaomomo **_**_(✿◡‿◡)]: _**_**I am so nervous right now, and I don't even know why because it doesn't start until five**_

_[Kyoukanut]: hmm well that explains why you answered now instead of three hours later to avoid conversation with some rando creep  
__[Kyoukanut]: just remember to fuck the rules if you ever feel unsafe and hit me up if you feel uncomfortable_

_**[Yaomomo **_**_(✿◡‿◡)]: _**_**Thank you, Kyouka**_

_[Kyoukanut]: also make sure to let me know if anything happens ( •̀ ω •́ )✧_

_**[Yaomomo **_**_(✿◡‿◡)]: _**_**I swear, sometimes you're just as bad as Mina**_

_[Kyoukanut]: no it's so that i can beat up anyone not worthy of you_

_**[Yaomomo **_**_(✿◡‿◡)]: _**_**That's not very Plus Ultra of you**_

_[Kyoukanut]: yes it is  
__[Kyoukanut]: go beyond. beat up your best friend's inappropriate suitors. plus ultra!  
__[Kyoukanut]: they're basically the same as villains at that point so it's okay (*≧__︶≦__))_

_**[Yaomomo **_**_(✿◡‿◡)]: _**_**Don't you have a date with Kaminari really soon?**_

_[Kyoukanut]: he's outside right now actually  
__[Kyoukanut]: my dad just likes to grill him  
__[Kyoukanut]: don't worry no matter what happens #YaomomoProtectionSquad2kforever_

_**[Yaomomo **_**_(✿◡‿◡)]: _**_**What would I do without you**_

_[Kyoukanut]: and we'll even kidnap todoroki to help out_

_**[Yaomomo **_**_(✿◡‿◡)]: _**_**I take that back**_

There was a courtesy knock at the door, and when Marika walked back into her bedroom, Momo hastily shut off her phone and threw it back onto the bed.

"Fresh out of the refrigerator, Miss," Marika said, handing Momo a small, pale pink rosebud and a safety pin.

Momo stared blankly at the flower for a few seconds. "I'm sorry, but… if I'm going to wear flowers, Marika, shouldn't I have a corsage?"

Marika made that sound very specific to older mother-figures that meant that she was very exasperated but still somehow willing to go along with whatever disaster was in front of her. "Just because I said it was _for you_ doesn't mean _you're_ the one supposed to wear it. Just hold onto it for now and if for whatever reason, everything else falls through, you'll still have something pretty to make it a little bit better."

Unfortunately, there weren't any pockets in Momo's dress, and she didn't know what to say to all that, so there ended up being a silence between the two until Marika again decided that enough was enough and beckoned Momo out the door.

"Come, come," she said. "The first wave of guests have already arrived. It's time for you to be a good host. And put _on_ your mask!"

* * *

**Saturday, 5:12 p.m.  
**_**t**_**_₁_**_** = —2 hours**_

"Mother," Momo said upon seeing her mother for what felt like the first time in the last three days. "Might I ask why you had a boutonniere prepared for me instead of a corsage?" (She had to try _ridiculously_ hard to sound perfectly neutral and not ludicrously excited.)

Mrs. Yaoyorozu turned to face her daughter and smiled quite amicably, as she often did. "I mentioned it earlier, didn't I? There's someone coming tonight who hasn't been to one of our parties in a very long time. I suspect you'll find that I had great foresight once you find them."

Momo genuinely could not stop the smile that ended up on her face, and she broke etiquette for a moment to embrace her mother tightly, careful not to break the feathers that plumed out one side. "Thank you."

* * *

**Saturday, 5:19 p.m.  
**_**t**_**_₁_**_** = —2 hours**_

"We should have adjusted departure for rush hour," Fuyumi sighed as the three Todoroki siblings walked up the surprisingly lengthy path through the host's sprawling front yard to get to the front door and into the party.

"The invitation said dinner wouldn't start until half past five, so we'll be _fiiine,_ Mimi," Natsuo said, springing up a set of stairs as he did so and meeting them at the top.

A masked butler bowed to them once the siblings arrived at the front door. "Welcome," he said. "I assume you all have the cards sent back in return for the RSVPs?"

The three siblings gave the butler their affirmatives, each reaching into their pockets to pull out said card.

"Excellent," said the butler, declining their attempts to hand him their cards. "These cards are not only your entry method. There is a particular seating arrangement in place for dinner, so in order to better preserve the air of anonymity, each place setting has a card has a unique drawing on it that matches one held by a guest. To put it simply, your card tells you where to sit. Now, please allow one of the maids to escort you to the dining hall. Dinner will begin quite shortly, and we do not want you to get lost before you have eaten."

* * *

**Saturday, 6:01 p.m.  
**_**t**_**_₁_**_** = —1 hour**_

Momo felt a little strange, eating dinner with a flower hidden beneath the napkin on her lap. It felt more like a reminder to sit with both her feet flat on the ground (as best as that could be achieved with heels, at least) than foreshadowing of the things she hoped would come.

She really hadn't thought too much about tonight's dinner, but if she had to put her expectations to words, she would have said she assumed she'd be sitting across from her friend from long ago. Still, the reality of dinner's seating arrangement wasn't bad at all. The young woman who sat opposite of her (Mimi, as she had introduced herself) was very sweet, although she seemed a bit anxious.

"You mentioned you were a school teacher," Momo said, hoping to perhaps take Mimi's mind off whatever seemed to be worrying her. "What grade level do you teach?"

Mimi practically transformed before Momo's eyes, lighting up and smiling as soon as she received the question. "Elementary school third years!" she said. "I taught fifth and sixth graders before, but now I'm learning how much I really took for granted with older kids. Like, a fifth year will know how to properly hold a calligraphy brush, but not all my third graders…"

Momo felt someone staring in her direction. However, she didn't get the impression that it was predatory, so she did her best to ignore it and focus on Mimi's excited chatter about the joys of teaching, but the feeling persisted.

Its intensity must have been enough for others to sense it too, because Mimi dropped off after a few moments and gave Momo a look of concern. "What's up?" she asked, her tone the perfect blend of concern and nonjudgement.

"It just feels kind of like someone's staring at me," said Momo, vaguely gesturing in the suspected direction.

Mimi looked over to where Momo had pointed, made a face, then returned to her meal with a bit of a smile. (Just like that, the feeling of being watched disappeared.) "You have nothing to worry about," she said. "That was just one of my brothers. He's a bit awkward, and he can get a bit spacey at events like these."

"Oh, have you been to these parties before?" Momo asked, but Mimi shook her head.

"Private events like this, no, not in a long time. Our father doesn't like them."

Momo finally snuck a glance at the boy who had been staring at her, but found that identifying someone whose main method of being made known had been a stare was remarkably difficult when they were no longer staring at her.

"He's the one in the half mask, sitting across from the man in wings," Mimi said, as casually as a comment on the weather.

Momo flinched at Mimi's abrupt clarification, then turned back to her food, face flushing.

Mimi giggled. "Teacher's intuition," she explained in response to the unasked question. "Or 'sensei-senses,' as I like to say to my students. Don't worry about freaking him out by staring or anything. He's pretty used to it."

Momo took a drink of water to try to cool her face. "So how long has it been since you guys attended a party like this?"

"Umm…" Mimi put down her utensils and did a quick count on her fingers. "A little over ten years, give or take. Long enough to say that it's basically like he's never been to one of these before."

A wave of servants came around and switched out their current course for the next one..

"Oh, thank you," Momo told her butler as he did so.

"You're welcome, Miss," he said in a low voice, nodding before he continued his rounds.

Momo took this as an opportunity to get a hasty glance at Mimi's brother, quickly spotting him just a few seats away. He truly did appear to radiate _awkward, _the feeling coming across loud and clear the second she managed to pick him out from the other guests. Yet, she also sensed something more about him that she couldn't quite place, and because of it, her hasty glance turned into a proper look, which in turn transformed into actual staring.

He looked her way, and their eyes met.

Momo's heart chose not to beat for a moment, instead jumping up to her throat for a quick plunge into her stomach, and the butterflies it stirred up as a result caused her to face forward again as fast as she was physically capable.

"Woah, are you okay there?" asked the person sitting to her immediate left, to which Momo smiled the best she could and assured the guest she was just fine.

Momo finally looked at Mimi again, who suddenly seemed very interested in the new dish.

"It seems you've found my brother," she said, the corner of her mouth twitching.

All the windows in the hall were open, but the sun hadn't quite set yet, so there were no night breezes coming in to cool Momo's burning cheeks. Her thoughts were all a blur, stealing away her ability to formulate a response.

"I know I did say he's basically never been to one of these before," continued Mimi, "but he does remember a few things, he told me, and he's brought along a corsage based off those things alone."

"Really? Because _I _have with me a boutonniere because of some old memories of my own," Momo blurted out, the words tumbling from her mouth as soon as she thought them up.

"How peculiar," Mimi said. She paused her eating for a moment, looked up, and grinned at Momo. "Guess you'll just have to see what that's all about later, huh?"

Excitement filled Momo's chest all in a rush. "So it appears."

* * *

**Saturday, 6:36 p.m.  
**_**t**_**_₁_**_** = —42 minutes**_

Shoto hadn't meant to stare at her the first time. It was just that the color of her dress stood out in his head for being so close to that of his mother's ring, and the more he looked the more he felt that she was the one. It couldn't be a coincidence; there had to be some higher power out there painting the way to her in sapphire blue and silver.

His sister embarrassed him with the way she told him off, and he became more aware of his gaze after that. He hoped she didn't think he was being gross or anything (he had to trust Fuyumi to cover for his bad manners), since he wasn't sure how to explain what was going through his head at the time if she didn't turn out to be the girl he dreamt of.

That's why when he looked that way again, it was because now _he_ sensed someone staring at _him._ It was a feeling he knew all too well and thus usually ignored, but it was a different from usual in a way he couldn't describe. He couldn't stand its unfamiliarity, so he looked at her again and felt just as surprised as she appeared when their eyes met.

He thought he saw her in his dream last night; the masks looked very similar. She broke their gaze as quickly as it began, but now, he was convinced she was the one.

He tried to focus on his dinner after that, but Shoto just could not shake the feeling that had appeared after he made eye contact with that girl sitting across from Fuyumi. It lingered in his chest much the way a long, vivid dream lingered in his mind. Was this what his mother meant when she told him to listen to his heart? It seemed an appropriate phrase for how he was feeling.

This was real.

This was happening.

And there was no turning back.

* * *

**Saturday, 7:05 p.m.  
**_**t**_**_₁_**_** = —13 minutes**_

When Momo came back after a quick trip to the restroom, the music had begun and it was well into the first dance. The last little sliver of the sun had set, and the ballroom was entirely lit by the chandeliers hanging overhead.

Momo stuck to the wall as she began the long way over to the other side of the room. If her dreams and Mimi's hints had been worth anything, she would be looking for a wallflower, and there was no better way to look for a wallflower than by walking the perimeter of the room.

The music began fading out; the first dance was ending. She scanned what little of this side she hadn't personally checked and saw no signs of him. Time to switch over.

She had just a few short moments to cross the room by hiding in the crowd of people who had just finished breaking in the dance floor. Most people don't go to the far side of the ballroom once they're done dancing, though, so it was with mere seconds to spare that she reached the other side.

She paused to watch the new pairs of dancers as they each took their places. The conductor nodded at the string quartet, counted them off, and the second dance began all at once. Momo spent a minute watching the people twirl before returning to her search.

And it wasn't long before it was a wallflower she did find, leaning against a pillar by a balcony door with his arms crossed and an expression that asked to be left alone. It had to be him. It _had_ to be; she just _knew_ it.

She shifted her grip on the rose she had just spent five minutes freshening up in the restroom. (Not that it had needed it; her family knew where to get hardy flowers. It was just that she felt as if she shouldn't be in the room when dessert started to be cleared away.) It was time for her to make her move.

She slipped behind his pillar and leaned against it herself, but as stealthy as she thought she had been, he turned around and checked her hiding place anyway.

"Hey," she said, smiling just a bit as she suddenly found herself staring into a pair of dark grey eyes. She fidgeted with the boutonniere stem.

"…Hey," he replied, staring right back at her.

And then, silence.

* * *

**Saturday, 7:13 p.m.  
**_**t**_**_₁_**_** = —5 minutes**_

"Hey, um," said Shoto, breaking gaze to look awkwardly off to the side. (This was real. This was happening. There was no turning back.) "May I have the next dance?"

The girl from his dreams began to giggle, and he quickly looked back at her. After an eternity (but not), she said, "Gladly."

Shoto wanted to let out a sigh of relief. Asking that one question had made him more nervous than he expected, but there was still more to come, he knew. He held out his hand as the music was ending, and when she took it, he pulled her out from behind the pillar.

* * *

**Saturday, 7:15 p.m.  
**_**t**_**_₁_**_** = —3 minutes**_

There was another bit of silence, during which Momo battled with her internal need for external confirmation. This was him, right? She had been so sure of it just a few minutes ago, but now that seemed more like an information high; something about this boy just didn't look the way her heart and long-buried memories said he would.

**Saturday, 7:16 p.m.  
**_**t**_**_₁_**_** = —2 minutes**_

As Shoto led them onto the dance floor, his dance partner seemed to tighten her grip on his arm.

"So, this is probably going to sound crazy, but…" she hesitated, and when Shoto looked at her, she wouldn't meet his gaze. "A long time ago, when I was really little, I met someone at one of these parties, and he was the first friend I ever made. And, we promised to see each other again, but we never did after that, and I _know _this is going to sound crazy, but—" she finally looked back at him and asked her question. "—I've had this feeling all night that it was you."

**Saturday, 7:17 p.m.  
**_**t**_**_₁_**_** = —1 minute**_

Her wallflower stopped, evidently deciding that they reached a good spot to begin their dance. Momo held her breath, afraid of being wrong but much too terrified to not make sure anyway.

"Yeah," he said. "I had that feeling too."

Momo let out that breath and smiled. "Then I believe this is meant for you," she said, swiftly pinning the little, pink rose she'd been carrying around to his blazer.

"Oh," he said, but she couldn't tell if what emotion it went with. "Right." He took her hand, and he slipped a corsage onto her wrist. It was a little roughed around, but it still matched the boutonniere.

She smiled as she settled her hand on his shoulder, excited to spend the night getting to know him.

(And, it was hard to catch, but he smiled back at her too as he put his hand upon her waist.)

**Saturday, 7:18 p.m.  
**_**t**_**_₁_**_** = 0**_

The conductor raised his baton, and the dance began.

* * *

**_author's note ii. _**_aaaand then i could have just left it at that and it would have been a perfectly okay ending if i cut out a few prior bits so that there were no more dangling plot threads, but i didn't because this is barely the beginning of what i described in my original pitch. __genuinely thought this was going to be a oneshot at first. how foolish of me._

_fun fact every time i had to spell boutonniere i had to look it up. french isn't real and anyone who says that it is a real language is lying to you bc they don't want to admit they can't spell spanish. this not very hot take is a joke._

_check out my tumblr (**a-piece-of-shipping-trash**) and ask questions about stuff i do. or just appreciate the fandom shitposts i reblog. or decide that i am your senpai and that i must notice you at any cost. (that has happened before.) but really i just crave attention and i'm not going to hide it._

_anyway tune in next week for when tdmm experience the masquerade ball together. thank you for reading! please review, and as always, have a greaaaaaat daaaaaayyyy~~~_


	3. Twenty Questions

**Word Count: **7,380

* * *

— **7:18 p.m. —**

"Let's play Twenty Questions," said the masked girl in his arms as they began their waltz.

"Sure," said Shoto. He was good enough at dancing that he could sort of hold a conversation as he did it. "I'm not really that good at coming up with questions though."

"That's all right; I'll start then," she assured him, then hummed for a moment. "I suppose the best place to start is where have you been all this time?"

"Shizuoka prefecture," he answered. Fuyumi told him to try and stay as anonymous as he could for the night, so that was a good answer, right?

"That's not too far," commented his dance partner.

"About an hour from here," he said, then realized it was his turn to ask something. "Umm…" Everything he'd ever thought he'd want to ask her seemed to fly out of his brain right at that exact moment, as he guided her into a spin and watched her hair seemingly float off her shoulders as she did so. "What's your favorite color?"

"I know it might not seem like it, but it's actually red," she replied. "I almost went with a red gown tonight, but for some reason, I changed to this one."

So it was true. There was something out there pulling at their strings.

"_Mom…"_ he said under his breath.

His dance partner shot him a quizzical look. "What was that?"

"Nevermind," Shoto quickly said. "Your turn."

She hummed, careful to have it harmonize with the background strings. "I'm assuming you go to high school, right?"

"Of course," he said, wondering if she'd seen him on TV during the Sports Festival this year. "Did that count as a question?"

"Sure, but that means I'm counting that question just now too." She flashed him a cheeky grin. "But just so we're even, I'm in high school too."

"I wouldn't have expected anything less from the girl who walks my dreams," he murmured, but again, her hearing was sharper than he realized.

"Your dreams?"

Oh whoops; that probably freaked her out. It didn't feel like she was repulsed, though, so Shoto simply shifted his eyes off to the side, bit the bullet, and told her the truth. "Yeah. There's this one recurring dream I've had as long as I can remember where I'm here."

"And you're really young again?" she asked, to which he nodded.

"Most of the time this girl comes up to me and takes me around, and then at the end of it, if I haven't woken up by that point, she'll give me something."

"But then sometimes, you're just the same age you are right now, and we meet at a party quite like this. Sometimes by a pillar, sometimes under the stars. But always, it's me finding you, isn't it?" she continued.

Every word she said was right on the dot. If he hadn't been the one to start this conversation, Shoto probably would have been a little freaked out. "I didn't get to ask my question yet," he said even though he had no idea what he wanted to ask.

"Wait a bit," she said. "This dance is going to end really soon."

As if on cue, the last few notes of the piece wrapped up, and the song was over. Shoto and the girl let go of one another and bowed in acknowledgement.

— **7:29 p.m. —**

Just as soon as the formalities were over, Momo took her wallflower's hand in her own, leading him off the dance floor and onto one of the balconies to feel the cool, night air. There, she let go and leant against the railing so that the wind could maybe blow her blush away.

Her friend soon joined her, and she could smell what was probably his shampoo from how close he was. (It was nice.)

"What should I call you?" he asked.

Momo thought about it for several minutes. Had he asked her before they'd danced, she would have told him in a heartbeat, she was so tired of not knowing who he was. But now, she'd begun having too much fun with their game, and irrational as it sounded, she felt as if revealing their true names would end it far too soon.

She stared at him staring at the rising moon, his expression hidden behind his mask

"I'm not going to tell you my real name, just to maintain the air of a masquerade's mystery," she slowly began, "but until you find me again and know who I am, you can call me… Yoru." (After a character in a fun manga she started reading recently, but he didn't need to know that.) She tilted her head at him. "And what about you?"

There was a pause, noticeably longer than her own, as he came up with a masked identity.

"Toki," he finally said.

They let each other's names settle in for a little while.

"Yoru."

"Yes, Toki-san?"

"I've forgotten how many questions we've gone through," Toki confessed.

Momo smiled. "We were probably playing it wrong anyway," she said.

There was another silence. (There seemed to be an awful lot of those, but luckily, that didn't make their time bad.)

"So in your dreams," Momo began, and she felt Toki look away from the sky and at her. "I've had dreams like those, too. I'm at a party much like this one right now, and I'm always looking for someone. I can never fully remember what he looks like, but that doesn't stop me from trying to find him anyway. Mostly, I don't, but sometimes, I do." She paused to really _feel_ the air in her lungs as she breathed in the night and fixed her gaze on the horizon. (She was afraid to continue, but if he had been able to start this conversation, she would be able to continue it too.) "And last night, he looked like you."

"Huh." (The way he said it was frustratingly nondescript; just what did he mean by "huh"?) "That's…" He paused, seeming to struggle with words until he finally settled on one. "Weird."

Momo was now uncertain as to whether she had said the right thing, and all the confidence of the night was leaving her like sand from a broken sandbag. But she clung to what she had left and kept her cool just the way all her hero training had taught her to. "I suppose it is," she sighed. "After all, it's a well-established scientific fact that our brains cannot make up faces, so it should be impossible for me to have seen you as you are right now in my dreams unless we've met again without realizing it."

"No, that's not what I meant. I wasn't calling _you_ weird," Toki explained. "You were right earlier, when we were dancing. About _my_ dreams."

"That it's always me, looking for you," Momo repeated, mostly to herself, but still speaking aloud for more reason than mere surprise. Her gaze, the one she'd trained to the horizon, suddenly broke.

— **7:37 p.m. —**

Yoru faced him, first turning her head to meet his gaze all at once, then slowly opening her whole body to him. There was a fantastic degree of emotion in her eyes, none of which Shoto knew how to put to words. But then again, he also had no clue to the names of his own current feelings; just feeling them was enough at the moment.

Dream girls were important, especially when real. Especially when you were the boy in her dreams too. Shoto wasn't sure what this meant. He'd have to ask his mother, and she'd call it what she wanted. Fate. Destiny. (Idiocy.)

Shoto realized he had no idea what to say next that would forward the conversation.

The night wind then blew as if on cue, irritating Shoto's eyes.

"Ah, fuck," he said, taking a step back and turning away so he could try to get a handle on the pain.

"Are you okay? What happened?" Yoru immediately asked, rushing to his side.

"I'm fine. It's nothing, just my contacts," answered Shoto, blinking rapidly as a couple tears fell into his hand, taking the pain with them. "I'm wearing a set I'm not used to."

"Oh," Yoru said.

(A warmth he hadn't previously noticed vanished, and once he could think clearly again, Shoto realized she had put her hand on his arm while they waited for him to recover.)

"So, what kind of high school do you go to?" she asked him suddenly, leaving him without an opportunity to acknowledge her touch. "If you attend a specialty school, that is."

(Shoto let it go, deciding she had simply been concerned.) "I go to a heroics high school," he said, shaking the tiny puddle of tears off his hand and readjusting his mask.

Yoru hummed in the way people do when they're very pleased but don't want it to show too much, a very specific action that Shoto was only familiar with because Fuyumi was in the habit of doing it whenever he talked about his classmates. "What a coincidence," said Yoru as she averted her eyes, "So do I."

"Mask and all?"

Yoru snorted, but quickly masked it with proper laughter. "Maybe if I ever needed to go into vigilantism," she said.

The wind suddenly picked up again, and her Yoru's mask, likely already loosened from the dance, had its feathers catch a sudden wind, tugging at the rest of the mask, which started to slip. Yoru yelped, her hand flying to her face to keep her costume in place, and Shoto averted his gaze as quickly as he would had it been anything else.

"The ribbons probably make it unfit for outside use," she sighed. "It's such a shame, because it looks and feels nicer than an elastic."

She paused, and Shoto continued to stare back into the party.

"Could you help me retie it?" she asked. "I'm facing the other direction, so you don't have to worry about anything."

"Of course," said Shoto lowly.

Neither of them said a word as he began fumbling with the ribbons, tying and retying them over and over again. (They were just too slippery to stay put! The knot never seemed to stay symmetrical! Her _hair_ kept slipping in!)

After a few minutes that felt more like forever, he finally decided it was good enough. He let go of the ribbons and left them alone this time.

Yoru put a hand up to feel the knot, then turned around to face him again, her cheeks oddly flushed. "Thank you, Toki-san," she said.

Shoto found himself staring at her without a reply for much longer than he would care to admit afterward. She didn't seem to mind anyway.

He felt a sudden jolt in his chest as he remembered the ring. "Oh, by the way, I promised my mother I'd give you something if I saw you here tonight," he said, digging around in his pocket.

"Your mother?" Yoru asked.

Shoto made a noise of confirmation. "I told her all about you, and how I've seen you in my dreams…" He stopped himself for a moment, then pulled his hand out of his pocket, ring kept out of sight in his fist. "Sorry. That must have been strange to hear."

"Oh, no! No, it's fine. It would be weirder to have never mentioned these things to anyone," Yoru assured him. "I… may have told one of my friends about you too."

— **7:48 p.m. —**

"Hold out your hand," Toki said.

Momo obeyed, and Toki dropped something small and light into her hand.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, seeing it gleam in the mix of warm party light and silvery moonlight. She brought it closer to her face. It was hard to judge the quality of the stone or ring in the light they had, but in the end, it was his intentions that mattered, was it not?

"Thank you," said Momo, looking back up at Toki so that she could smile at him. She began to slip the ring onto her middle finger, but it got stuck on her second knuckle.

"Oh, it doesn't fit there," she said to herself, and she tugged it back off.

"That's weird. My mom told me she bought it with her first paycheck when she was our age. She probably would have worn it on that finger too, so I don't know how it wouldn't fit," Toki said.

Momo kept the ring in her palm for the time being. She gave Toki a look, trying not to smile at his naïveté. "People have differently sized hands, you know," she said, picking up one of his before he could protest and putting it palm to palm with her free one. "Your mother must have had very delicate hands if her fingers were thinner than my own piano hands."

The two peeked at one another through the gaps in their fingers, and Momo couldn't help but be struck by the way the moonlight made Toki's white hair appear to glow. She wanted to say he looked a bit odd, but in the society they lived and at the party they attended, she had no solid basis to justify that claim. Perhaps he was actually familiar, and there had been some alterations done for the night that made her subconscious brain declare him odd.

Toki was the one who first withdrew his hand.

"You should be a bit more wary of your hands around me," he said. "I have a, uh, history."

Momo raised an eyebrow at him as she brought her own hand back to her side. "A history?"

"Long story," he hastily said, diverting his gaze to somewhere just beyond her shoulder for that particular moment. "You play the piano, you said?"

"Yes, I play a little bit. Not as much as I used to, but—" she stole a glance into the ballroom to check the clock that hung over the main entrance— "I could still show you, if you want."

His eyes returned to her, and he had but one word as his response: "How?"

Now at this, Momo did not hesitate to take his hand into her free one and start leading him away.

— **8:01 p.m. —**

Shoto wasn't sure how they managed to slip by the ever-present staff by the door, where they stood in perpetual wait for some poor soul to ask for guidance to the restroom, but he wasn't going to question Yoru's magic. Besides, they were running through the dark halls of… well, he supposed it was someone's house (He never _had_ bothered to figure out who was hosting tonights masquerade, had he?")- at the moment, and the time to question that particular stunt had probably passed at this point.

Yoru slowed down, and they stopped in a bright pool of moonlight in the middle of a long, dark hallway. (She let go of his hand.) Unsurprisingly, neither of them was particularly winded, but _man, _did running in dress shoes _suck. _Which, now that he thought about it, begged the question…

"Are you okay?" he asked, remembering that beneath Yoru's gathered skirts, she wore high heels.

"I'm fine; don't worry about it." She waved him off with a smile, doing ankle rotations all the while. "My hero costume has heels too. Much sturdier than these, of course, but it's just application of concept in this case."

Shoto prodded his hamstring, wincing at what felt like a blister forming. He really should have taken Fuyumi's advice and put a band-aid on the back of his foot earlier. "So then why did we stop?"

Yoru put both feet back on the ground and pointed straight down the hall. Shoto squinted, but the particularly bright moon made it hard to see into the dark. "We've just about arrived at a room with a piano," she said. She started walking again, paused, turned back, and made a "_Come on!"_ motion at him.

Shoto ran to catch up, then fell in step with her. "How do you know this?"

"I, um, was very early, so I did a bit of exploring before dinner started!" she replied. They had just left the patch of moonlight, so he couldn't see her face. However, since his temporary blindness meant he _also_ could no longer see where he was headed, he decided to just be grateful she grabbed his hand again to guide him through the dark.

They stopped in front of what Shoto supposed was a door, unless he had made a grave mistake throughout the night and was about to meet his demise in this dark dead end deep in the recesses of an unfamiliar home.

Yoru opened the door.

(Shoto wasn't afraid of the dark. He just usually had his flames to keep him company.)

Her hand slipped out of his as she entered the room, and he slipped in after her, taking great care to close the door behind them. He listened closely for its quiet click amidst the steady clacking of high heels on tile reverberating through the room, and only turned around when he knew it had shut.

There was probably more to the room than what Shoto could see, but the only thing that felt like it existed, if just barely, was the black grand piano, shining like the stars themselves as it stood alone in the middle of a pool of moonlight.

Yoru stepped into the moonlight, and the last echoes of her gait faded away. She turned around, the scrape of her shoes on the tile feeling much louder in the empty silence than it actually was. There was a pause as they let that, too, fade away, and the stillness of the scene returned.

Then, Yoru smiled, tilting her head as if to tease him for being so shy. "Come on," she called. "It would feel weird if you just stayed there in the shadows, Toki."

Shoto shook himself out after staring for so long, then made his way over to the grand piano, the sound of his footsteps the only thing to be heard. Yoru smiled at him again, gathered her skirts, and sat down at the piano bench.

"You sit down too," she insisted. "It would feel weird if you didn't."

And so Shoto just barely fit himself onto the piano bench next to her. Would this really be the best way to play? Well, it was up to her.

As he continued to say nothing, Yoru sat up straight, took a deep breath, and began to play.

— **8:08 p.m. —**

Momo unfortunately had no pockets, so she dropped the ring onto her lap from the moment she sat down. Yet, she couldn't help but to worry about it as she played. Would it fall off? Would she forget it was there, then lose it once she stood up again? She needed a better method of safekeeping.

She picked the ring up off her lap once she was finished and held it up to the light to see it sparkle. A sapphire ring bought through the thin pocketbook of a sixteen-year-old girl some decades ago, huh? It was surprising how well it matched her outfit for the night, as if it were meant to be.

She slipped it onto her ring finger, where this time, it was a perfect fit.

"Oh. Are you sure you want to keep it there?" asked Toki.

"If that's what you want me to be," she coyly replied, emboldened by the disguise (but flushing all the same).

"Huh?"

"Toki, can you play anything?"

"Uhhh…" His brain appeared to be buffering, his train of thought still stuck at the previous station. "_The Blue Danube," _he said.

"On the piano?" She would have thought that he would have mentioned being able to play the piano himself when he asked her.

"Yes. But it was a duet."

Momo held onto the edge of the piano bench and looked up at him with her head half upside-down. "Do you still remember how to play?" she asked.

Toki thought about it for a minute. "More or less."

She sat up straight and proper again. "Primo or secondo?" She readied her hands on the ivory keys.

"Huh?"

She gestured to the piano. "I want to play with you. I've played that song before, too. Did you do primo or secondo?"

"Oh," said Toki, but he put his hands on the keyboard anyway. "Secondo."

"All right. I'll lead this time, then."

Three, two, one. They breathed in as one, and let their bodies guide them through the rest.

Even when the piano fell dark, they continued on from memory until there was nothing left to be played.

— **? ? ? —**

The moon had already removed their spotlight after they finished. They fumbled a few times (perhaps from lack of practice, perhaps from lack of experience; who was to tell?), but they were still left mysteriously breathless at the end.

Shoto's hands left the keys, and one landed on Yoru's, resting on the piano bench. It felt cool to the touch, but warm just beneath the surface; he couldn't tell if that was simply how hands felt when you held them or if it were a side effect of his quirk.

He turned to face her, and despite the lack of good light, he still found himself staring into the stars reflected in her eyes. The silver thread embroidered into her mask still gleamed in the pitch black, and the white feathers that extended out one side seemed to glow.

The darkness enveloped them completely, making Shoto feel as though this _was_ the entire world as he knew it. Himself. Yoru. Sitting on a piano bench, the only things visible the faint, pale reflections from their masks and eyes.

The air was not as still as it first appeared. Shoto felt a soft caress sweep beneath his mask and against his cheek as gently as a dawn's first light, growing stronger as the moment drew on.

He leaned into it.

Something soft and warm pressed against his lips. At first, he wasn't sure what to do past this point, but he leaned into it.

Fumbling, tumbling, they made more mistakes here than in the duet, but he leaned into it. A strange gnawing opened up in Shoto's stomach and chest. His hand pressed down on Yoru's as he put more weight onto the bench, encouraged further by the surprising strength with which she put into her half.

He leaned into her.

She tasted like cherry chapstick, and the moment he realized this, he simply stopped thinking at all. He became nothing but a collection of feelings. Butterflies, tickling at his everything. Breath, mixing with another's. Hair, working its way into his mouth. Heat, burning just beneath the surface. An endless eternity before him, a time without end and a rhyme without stead.

Yet somehow, it came to an end. The air was colder than it had been before, stinging his throat as it entered his lungs. His heart beat harder than it had been before, thundering through his ears with its every skip, bump, and thump. The moon, now gone, left the room darker than it had been before (but he now had an illumination that could not go away).

"We should… go back," said Yoru, still capturing her breath again.

Something scraped gently across his cheek and over his forehead. The thin elastic thread that cut into his head ceased to be a pain. The mask was in Yoru's hands.

Shoto gulped, the static in his mind hardly enough to power even a lightbulb of thought. "Yeah, we… we should," he said. His free hand began to wander as well. Much later, when he looked back on this time, he would say it happened without him fully realizing it. However, in the moment, he was aware. It was with careful deliberation that he lifted Yoru's mask off her face (and she allowed to come undone the very thing he had earlier fixed).

They had nothing but the night's deep shadow to shroud them now.

"It really is impossible to see in here," Yoru said softly, and she leaned into him.

— **? ? ? —**

There was a chill in the shape of his hand on her cheek as he left it to halfheartedly tug his mask out of her hand. Against her better judgement, Momo sighed against him, not wanting it to end.

But end it did anyway.

Momo took back her own mask and tied it on again, the residual heat from Toki's hands hardly a substitute for the real thing.

Every effort in the world seemed lesser than what it took for Momo to lift her leaden lap off the piano bench, helped, of course, by Toki, who had taken the first initiative to leave. Every step her jellied legs took past that required a herculean effort to make; the door that walled them off from the outside world was just barely moveable by her featherlight-feeling self.

She stared down at the tips of her shoes peeking out from beneath her dress as they made their way down the hall, step by careful step. Despite their snail's pace, she still clutched his hand for dear life, for never before had she felt so unsteady in her heels.

"So," she said, though in reality there was no voice behind her words; she merely pushed them out of her mouth with breath and air alone. "Tell me about the people you know."

"The people I know?" Toki's voice, though hardly more than a whisper, felt like it boomed through the empty hall in comparison to Momo's voiceless request.

"Yes, like your friends at school or your senpais at an internship."

Toki's hand shifted in hers, and not for the first time, she was afraid.

"Friends at school," he repeated, toning himself down. (There was a pause.) "There's one I'm not too close with I have in mind, but I could pick another."

"Pick whomever you want," she assured him, doing her best to smile despite staring downward.

Toki was quiet for a moment, then let out a quick breath. "There's this one person in my class I'm not too close with," he repeated, more quietly this time. "They're really good at everything they do, and it's hard not to notice their ability. They always know what to do in any given situation, but…" He trailed off, apparently ruminating. "It's really easy to break their confidence, and they lack initiative at times because of it."

"They sound quite sensitive," said Momo, understanding all too well what that kind of insecurity felt like.

"Maybe. But that doesn't make them any lesser a person to admire. I think that as long as they know others trust and believe in them, they can be among the best out there after graduation."

Even though she knew he wasn't referring to her, Momo still felt something fluttering in her belly as her face grew warm. "Just knowing that someone else out there thinks so highly of you can really do wonders for self-esteem," she said.

"What about you?"

"Huh?" Momo finally pulled her eyes away from the ground and looked at Toki. Her heart skipped a beat and her brain short-circuited when she saw his face, but somehow her autopilot was good enough to keep her from tripping at that moment.

"Tell me about someone you know," he evenly said.

"Oh, yes," said Momo, turning away, this time to stare at the walls, out the windows, and into the gardens all done up in moonlight. (Why was her classmate Todoroki the first to come to mind?) "Well, I don't know this person _particularly_ well either," she began, voice shifting up in both pitch and volume from embarrassment.

"That's fine," murmured Toki. _(How could he be so relaxed about this?)_

Momo squeezed his hand tighter and hoped that her freezing free hand on her face would cool her cheeks a bit. "Anyway, they started off school very aloof—" her throat held in her words for a surprised second when Toki squeezed her hand back— "but they were always easily one of our best, too. They still tend to keep to themself, but once people started realizing they were simply awkward and started actively inviting them into everyone's worlds, they really… they really opened up!"

"Sounds like the brooding, emo type," Toki commented.

Momo giggled, and her butterflies dissipated and left with her laughter. "No, actually. I think that's how a lot of the world likes to see them, but inside, they're really just a dorky sweetheart who just wants to help people."

"Isn't everyone?" Toki asked.

Momo couldn't tell if he was being rhetorical or genuine based off his tone alone. Regardless, she faced him again (and let go of her skirts to readjust her grip for a moment). "Yeah, I think s— _WOAH!"_

Quick as a blink, Toki caught her as she fell, but even though they both ended up on the floor, once Momo regained her bearings, she felt as if she had missed the ground.

"Are you all right?" he asked, staring intently at her.

Momo clutched his arms, shaking a bit from her shock. Her thoughts were reeling, but still she opened her mouth to say, "I'm okay," but the words simply refused to be said. She shut her jaw and furrowed her brow, trying again only to meet the same end; she felt like a fish, but she had to try again, and—

"You don't have to answer that," Toki said.

A little fragment of her temporary mutism flew away and fetched a bit of her mind to stay in its stead. With Toki's reassurances freeing her thoughts, Momo allowed herself only to feel, just for the moment.

There was the worn roughness of the old carpet pressed up against her feet. The smooth caress of her dress skirt resting upon her legs. The light tickling of her hair brushing against her sensitive neck. The simple softness of Toki's blazer clutched in her hands. The comforting warmth and pressure of his hands still on her sides. The way her heart stopped pounding so much the longer he held her.

Bit by bit, the parts of Momo's mind unlocked themselves and returned her words.

"I'm fine," she said, and there was silence. She began to let him go, and soon, their hands were on their laps. She looked up from her lap.

His face was pale, his mask was white; it was all aglow in the moonlight. Yet, as her eyes wandered away from his and down to the lips, off to the side, she noticed a smudge— no, two, three, four? She leaned in and squinted, for it was always strangely hard to see in even the brightest moonlight.

Toki put a hand to her forehead to keep her from progressing even farther forward.

Momo blinked once, twice, then felt suddenly as if she were burning up. (Apparently she wasn't _entirely _back yet.) "I think…" she began, the mortification of their actions finally sinking in. "I think that some of my lipstick… it…" She gave up on saying it and just wiped some away, showing him the incriminating makeup that rubbed off on her hand.

"Oh," he said, and he took a swipe at his mouth with the palm of his hand. They stared at the resulting smudge.

Toki's phone abruptly vibrated, and both teens practically jumped apart, startled out of their wits. Momo breathed in time with her heartbeat to calm herself down as Toki unlocked his phone and checked what was up.

"My brother's drunk," he said plainly. "My sister says to meet them at the foyer in a few minutes."

The words hung in the air for Momo to process. "Oh." It was her turn to say the word now, so she did it again, more quietly, more heavily this time. "Oh."

He shut off the phone and pocketed it. Both sets of eyes went back to the dark smear on the back of his hand.

"I don't know what to do about that now," he said. "I didn't think to bring a handkerchief."

Momo desperately wished she could make something at that moment. Instead, she asked, "How long is a few minutes?" The first strands of a plan were already coming together in her head.

"Dunno," said Toki. "With Mimi, it could mean anywhere between three and twenty minutes."

"It can take a while to wash off makeup with just water, and if we rush it, it might end up messier than before," said Momo slowly. "So we better not take the risk of finding a bathroom to just try that." She paused for a moment. Her hands were becoming restless at her thoughts. "I don't have to go for a while yet, since my parents like to stay a party's full duration. If you want, I could…"

Again, she couldn't bring herself to finish her sentence, but Toki at least understood where she was going.

"Go for it," he said.

In an instant, Momo had gotten in close again and began wiping their sin off his face with her hands.

— **? ? ? —**

That.

That had been.

That was.

…

That had been something.

Shoto tried not to think about how he felt like he had been making out with her hand just now. He was alone now, walking through the last hall to the foyer as Yoru had instructed him, but he could feel her still in every part of him she had touched.

He stopped upon reaching the empty foyer, and he stood there.

Just.

Stood there.

The hall opposite from him had a warm, faint light coming from it. The ballroom. How long had the masquerade gone on for now? He almost didn't want to know what time it was.

He stood there.

He didn't know how everything that happened came to happen. He didn't know what he had expected coming here. He didn't know how he had felt about Yoru, about that childhood friend from so long ago, before tonight. The only feeling he could put name to was uncertainty.

He stood there.

Fuyumi came in, guided by a maid in a mask and dragging a lackadaisical Natsuo along behind her. Yup, he was definitely inebriated.

Fuyumi said something, but he didn't really hear it. Shoto said something in response, but he didn't really know it. It ended in Fuyumi grabbing his hand.

The three of them thanked the maid, apologized for leaving so soon, and walked out the door.

The fresh air woke Shoto from his dreamlike haze, and another identifiable feeling rose up inside him.

Yearning.

— **? ? ? —**

Momo inspected her face by the yellowish light of the bathroom. She'd cleaned off her hands, as evidenced by the heap of makeup removal pads smudged dark red and lying in her trash can, but despite the similar problem on her face, she found herself reluctant to erase it. There was just something hypnotizing about it. Combined with the weighty knowledge that this was her first, she just found herself staring at the marks on her face.

Her phone vibrated, the sound startling her from how loudly it rattled on the counter. (It was Kyouka again.) Needing to distract herself, Momo finally opened up the conversation and read through her best friend's barrage of texts.

[16:51]

_[Kyoukanut]: awww, c'mon yaomomo you know you love meeee_

_[Kyoukanut]: well i think i've let denki suffer long enough so see you laterrrr_

[18:03]

_[Kyoukanut]: this is denki_

_[Kyoukanut]: wow i cant believe i got that kyoulas phone keyboard is so small_

_[Kyoukanut]: lmao nevermind_

_[Kyoukanut]: anywya kyouka says to mail her some of the food youre having for dinner_

_[Kyoukanut]: so i iust wanna say that i wanna be mailed some od that food too bc shes right this place sucks_

_[Kyoukanut]: anyway shes coming back from the batheopm so byeeeee_

[18:18]

_[Kyoukanut]: you can just ignore that_

[19:31]

_[Kyoukanut]: okay but like don't ignore ME _

_[Kyoukanut]: (__っ __°Д °;)__っ_

[20:08]

_[Kyoukanut]: if you text me back later and say that you WEREN'T chillin with either_

_[Kyoukanut]: a) mystery boy_

_[Kyoukanut]: b) todoroki shoto_

_[Kyoukanut]: c) the love of your god damn life or_

_[Kyoukanut]: d) all of the above, who miraculously all turned out to just be todoroki all along_

_[Kyoukanut]: then i swear i'm gonna like_

_[Kyoukanut]: idk be really sad_

_[Kyoukanut]: also i need help on the math homework ο(=•ω__=)ρ⌒ _

The texts went on, each expressing some progressing stage of concern vaguely masked by Kyouka's normal brash nature. By the time Momo reached the bottom again, the three dots had already appeared again.

_[Kyoukanut]: yo dude you've been offline for hours_

Momo tried not to think too much about all the things that had _happened_ in those few hours, lest she accidentally combust with mortification.

_**I left my phone on my bed**_

_[Kyoukanut]: bruhhhhhhh_

_**I didn't pick a dress with pockets **__**（；**__**´д**__**｀）**_

_[Kyoukanut]: okay fine valid_

_[Kyoukanut]: but like what happened?_

This time, Momo was forced to think about it, and while her whole body felt hotter than the fire of ten thousand blue giants, she did not actually explode, so she sat down and told Kyouka everything. The dance, the banter, the kiss, _e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g._

_[Kyoukanut]: AIUHSAFHUIDGJDAHIUADJNFS_

_[Kyoukanut]: DUDE WHAT?_

_**Kyouka, I love you and all, but please just scroll up**_

_**I'm too embarrassed to say it again**_

_**(*/ω**__**＼**__***)**_

_[Kyoukanut]: okay okay okay_

_[Kyoukanut]: let me get this straight_

_[Kyoukanut]: you meet mystery boy again against all odds tonight_

_[Kyoukanut]: he asks you to dance you agree blah blah blah_

_[Kyoukanut]: blah blah blah words i never thought i'd ever say but boring balcony stuff_

_[Kyoukanut]: and then you make out on a piano bench in a dark room_

(At this point, Momo put down her phone and tried desperately to process all the events of the last few hours herself by staring at the ring still on her finger.)

_[Kyoukanut]: all right left on read i can see i'm doing something right then_

_[Kyoukanut]: so what's his name?_

_**Toki**_

_[Kyoukanut]: TOKI?_

_**Not his real name**_

_**I told him to call me Yoru**_

_[Kyoukanut]: his code name's gonna be tokidoki now_

_[Kyoukanut]: bc being with him gave you the doki-dokis (__๑•__̀__ㅂ•__́)__و✧_

_**We've never even used code names, Kyouka**_

_[Kyoukanut]: well we do now_

Momo sighed and shut off her phone. She stared again at Toki's ring, knowing it would have to come off eventually, just like the makeup. The question beyond that was, where would she keep it? Staff couldn't find out, and who _knew _what would happen if her mother found out. (She hoped the latter never would.)

She pulled it off her finger, then admired the tiny sapphire chip in the bathroom light. Corundums were pretty gemstones. It was funny how for them, blue and red were just two sides of the same coin. Ruby or sapphire, they were both just crystalline aluminum oxide. She could easily make one herself.

Momo blinked, suddenly lucid. She'd gotten so used to hiding her identity for the last few hours that she'd completely forgotten she could use her quirk again.

She stood up, threaded the ring through a silver chain, and fastened the clasp around her neck.

And now, at last, for the makeup.

With a sigh, she committed every detail to memory— from the hue of her lipstick to the cold, porcelain sink stinging her hands— and got to work.

— **? ? ? —**

Fuyumi gave him a funny look as they reentered the house, but she didn't actually say anything. Had he been too quiet on the car ride back? He was pretty sure he was always like that. Maybe it was because he hadn't sassed Natsu for rambling about whatever the whole ride back.

Shoto yawned, suddenly exhausted. He stumbled back to his room, took off his wig and mask, and was about to remove his contacts when he noticed the dark red spots on the underside of the mask. Oh no?

He made his way into the bathroom, flicked on the mirror and inspected the left half of his face.

Oh no.

(They had been so blind in both moments that they had _missed some.)_

Fuyumi would know how to fix it, but… well, it wasn't as though he knew of any other options.

"Fuyumiii," he called, dead tired but plodding down the hall nonetheless.

"What is it?" Fuyumi called from the other side of the door.

"I need to borrow your makeup remover."

"You need to borrow my _what?" _she asked, completely incredulous until she opened the door.

The siblings exchanged nary a word, instead staring at one another for several minutes.

Eventually, Fuyumi handed him a fresh stick of lip balm. "If that doesn't work, I'll lend you my makeup remover when I'm done with it."

"Thank you."

"So wh—"

"No."

"Okay."

**— 7:47 a.m. —**

Hosting a tutoring session the day after the masquerade definitely hadn't been Momo's best idea, but at least this was just Kyouka. She already knew _basically_ everything about last night, and she was too protective of her grades to go overboard with any new interrogation she might dream up.

Still, after Momo fastened her necklace around her neck, she then slipped its pendant underneath her clothes.

(Kyouka didn't _need_ to know _everything_ just yet. Some things she just wanted to keep for herself as long as possible.)

**— 9:26 a.m. —**

Doing homework felt too mundane a task for the morning after _the most dramatic day of his life_ (which was _really_ saying something, considering his friends), but what else was he _supposed _to do on the train ride to the hospital? Stare dramatically out the window? No! Because Iida was always telling him that zoning out on the train like that was a bad habit!

Speaking of his friends, he still hadn't told them anything. He wasn't sure how. So instead, he stared at his homework.

_Prove that 2csc²(x) — 1 = csc⁴(x) — cot⁴(x)_

Hmm, yeah, no thanks. He'd just ask Yaoyorozu later or something.

He sighed and stared out the window. Luckily for him, Natsuo's hangover meant that he and Fuyumi wouldn't be visiting Mom until much later, so Shoto could have all the time he wanted to recount the previous night's, for lack of a better word, _insanity. _

Shoto shoved his math notebook into his backpack and hopped off the train, working very hard to keep his mind free of thoughts as he walked the few blocks to his mother's hospital.

"I'm back," he said as he entered her ward.

His mother smiled at him just as she always did. "It was lonely without you kids yesterday," she said. "How was the party? Did you find who you were looking for?"

Shoto took in a solid breath and let it go as he sat down. With that out of the way, he finally told his first person about the masquerade and Yoru.

* * *

**_Author's Note iii. _**_ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ_

_i procrastinated on this chapter a lot bc i was too embarrassed to write the bits in the piano room lol __ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ_

_anyway thank you so much for reading! ! ! __you guys should leave me a review where you tell me what your favorite line was or to let me know if that was just Weird (and not in a good way) or maybe tell me if i wrote the kissing thing right c; and as always, have a greaaaaat daaaayyyy~~~_


	4. Revelations

**Word Count: **8,589

* * *

**Monday, 1:07 p.m.  
**_**t**_**_₂_** _**= —4 days**_

"Oh, Yaomomo, you got a new necklace over break?"

Kyouka quickly pulled her head through her shirt, curious about this unheard-of new necklace of Momo's Ochako had just mentioned. She got her head through just in time to catch a subtle flash of emotion cross her best friend's face, betraying a rare moment of panic, followed by a sort of disappointed reluctance.

"Yeah. It was a gift," answered Momo, quickly masking her hesitancy.

Ochako furiously rubbed the back of her head, suddenly embarrassed for asking. "Rich people sure are something else," she said, likely a thought she'd accidentally voiced. Luckily, all the girls were used to this sort of thing (they'd all done it by this point), and the conversation moved on.

Momo put a hand around the necklace's pendant, but it didn't seem as if she were intentionally trying to hide it; rather, she appeared to receive some sentimentality from it.

"You should take it off for Heroics class, Yaomomo," Kyouka advised, desperately hoping no one else would think to question it further before she herself could _personally_ get the scoop from Momo. (Especially since resident shipper Mina hadn't yet arrived in the locker rooms…) "Remember how hard Aizawa-sensei frowned at Kaminari when he tried adding a lanyard of rechargeable batteries to his hero costume?"

Ochako and Tsuyu burst into a fit of giggles at the memory, but Momo just unclasped the necklace and deposited it in her locker for safekeeping.

Just in time, too: Tooru burst into the room and sang a cheerful fanfare. "Now entering the girls' locker room iiiiiis… Hagakure Tooru and Ashido Mina!"

Mina jumped in too and did a little dance in the doorway. "Guess who '_surpassed expectations'_ on the summer homework!"

"Judging by your cheerfulness, I'm guessing you did?" Tsuyu said.

"Ding-ding-ding, thaaaat's right!" Mina crowed.

Tooru bounced excitedly around Tsuyu. "Yay! Yay! You got it right!" she cheered.

Meanwhile, Mina jumped onto the nearest bench and whooped. "WHOOOO let's talk some _ROMANCE_ in here!"

Out of the corner of her eye, Kyouka noticed Momo slip out of the locker room by herself. Not wanting to let her get away, Kyo laced up her boots as quickly as she could, but unfortunately, Mina planted herself in front of Kyouka.

"You!" she said, excitedly grinning. "How was your first school break as a not-single lady? Did you go on any dates? What were they like? Tell us, girl!"

Kyouka sighed, trying very hard to ignore the stinging heat rising in her cheeks and neck. Well, if it would tide the _resident shipper_ over for the day, then she'd just have to make that sacrifice in exchange for the rights to first knowledge on that ring of Yaomomo's.

* * *

**Tuesday, 7:41 p.m.  
**_**t**_**_₂_** _**= — 3 days**_

Todoroki-kun was acting strange. He _had_ been ever since school started again. Izuku and the gang didn't have to have PhDs in _Todoroki Moodology_ to figure that out. The question now was simple: _why?_

"Are all members of the colloquially-known 'Dekusquad' (aside from Todoroki-kun) present and hearing today?" Iida announced as three teenagers settled on the floor of Izuku's room.

"No, sir!" Izuku and Ochako replied in unison.

"Tsuyu-chan has declined attendance due to overlap with her extended bath time," Ochako explained.

"And Aoyama-kun has declined attendance because he is having a, quote, 'self-admiration day'," added Izuku.

"These are acceptable and valid excuses!" declared Iida. "Squad meeting commence!"

Ochako's hand shot up. "The time is 7:42!"

"Noted!" said Izuku, scribbling furiously in one of his many spare notebooks for half a second before looking up. "All right, so as we all know, Todoroki-kun has been acting more aloof than usual for the past two days. Are there any hypotheses?"

"Perhaps he simply caught a summer cold?" suggested Iida. "He has been covering his mouth very frequently as of late. Perhaps he forgot to stock up on face masks and is trying to be considerate. Of course, I do not condone such habits, as they increase germ spread, but we must applaud him for at least trying!"

"No, that can't be it," said Izuku, writing down every word the second it left someone's mouth, all without even looking at the page. "We would have heard him coughing if that were the case."

"Seconded," said Ochako, who sat closest to Todoroki in class. "Also, everyone knows that Todoroki-kun catching a cold is just an urban legend."

The three teenagers put their hands to their chins and rested their elbows on the table in their best thinking poses.

"Hmm," mumbled Izuku. "Maybe this is the result of a gradual personality shift due to the character development he's had over the past year, and we're only noticing now because the change has compounded so slowly that it's crept up on us like frogs in boiling pots—"

He stopped himself for a moment, then nervously ran a hand through his hair. "Sorry, I should have chosen my words more carefully."

"It's an expression, so it is fine, Midoriya-kun," Iida said, doing his robot arm thing to emphasize his point.

"I think he's onto something though," Ochako said, shifting so that her cheek rested on her palm now. "Maybe it wasn't that we didn't notice, but that something _big_ happened to him over the summer, and _that_ caused the slight personality shift by the time we returned."

"Yes, but what could that have been?"

The three of them put their heads together again. If Aizawa-sensei had been watching them, he would have dryly commented that, despite the trio's marked book smarts, there was but a single brain cell bouncing between their three skulls at that moment.

Izuku abruptly shot up.

"Gah!" said Ochako, while Iida just flinched backwards.

Izuku turned to them, an All Might figurine in his hand. He smiled sheepishly at them and said, "Sorry. I just noticed it starting to fall and my body moved before my mind even realized it."

"You do not need to apologize, Midoriya-kun! That is the mark of an admirable hero!" Iida said as Izuku reverently replaced the All Might figure to its spot on the shelf.

"You scared me there, Deku!" Ochako cried, but instead of getting fake-mad for witty banter purposes, she stopped; at the same time, the boys stopped too. The trio had reached the same conclusion.

Ochako was the first to break the silence.

"Horror movie night!" she exclaimed.

"Todoroki-kun hadn't been able to make it because—" Izuku added.

All three of them exchanged bewildered and excited glances.

"He was—"

* * *

**Tuesday, 8:23 p.m.  
**_**t**_**_₂_** _**= —3 days**_

So, the ring had been a gift from the mystery boy Toki himself, huh? Well that made sense. Not the part where she didn't tell her _best friend_ about it (of _all the things_ to leave out, _why_ the _ring?), _but Kyouka didn't mind so long as she knew in the end.

"Dude, what's wrong?" asked Denki. The two of them were chilling in her room, listening to shitty 70s disco to simulate living on Mars as described by _The Martian. _Which they were reading for English class, for some strange reason. (Whatever, it was a good book.)

"The fact that Mark Watney thinks that ABBA is shitty 70s disco," answered Kyouka, keeping a perfect poker face despite the joke. "I mean, he never specifies that ABBA is present on the data stick, but the narrative _implies—"_

"My dude," Denki said. "I love you and all, but I'm only on page 69."

"And you've _stayed_ there for the last half hour," Kyouka snipped. "Point is that Watney has no taste. ABBA _literally _has a song for _every occasion._ Just look at _Mamma Mia!"_

"Okay, but seriously, Kyo. What's on your mind?" Denki asked, more seriously this time.

Kyouka sighed and shoved a scrap of composition paper to save her place in the book and sat up. "I dunno if I can tell you."

Denki sat up too and stared at her with concerned, puppy-dog eyes. "You can't tell me?"

"Girl code."

Denki instantly chilled out again, sank back to the floor, and returned to staring at _The Martian, _page 69. "Oh, well then don't sweat it."

Kyouka peered over at him. "You're being awfully lax about all this."

"Yeah. I'll just pry the information out of Mina later."

Kyouka sat up and launched herself off the bed so fast she would have gotten whiplash if hitting the floor hadn't hurt her enough. "No, no, no, oh _please_ do _not_ go asking Mina," she begged, the memory of the locker room talk replaying in the back of her mind.

Denki grunted at the sudden force of Kyouka crashing into his back, but otherwise not minding that particular stunt at all. He twisted his head around to look at her and quirk an eyebrow. "What? Why not?"

Kyouka averted her eyes and poked her earphone jacks together, knowing she wouldn't (and _shouldn't!)_ be able to worm her way around the question, but still highly reluctant to answer anyway. "Heh, well, you _see,"_ she said, hating the way she waffled around with her words (but not knowing any other way to speak), "in order to keep the secret I'm currently trying to keep from you, I had to distract Mina long enough for the girl I'm covering for to get away, and the only way I could do that without looking suspicious was to answer all of her questions about our summer dates."

Denki's jaw dropped, and he scooted backwards a bit so that he could fully turn around and place his hands on Kyouka's shoulders (for maximum effect). "_WHAT." _

Kyouka chewed her lip and kept looking away, the back of her neck growing uncomfortably hot. "Yeah, so not only does she _not _know anything about what you _want _to know, she knows _everything _about what you _don't _want her to know."

She snuck a glance back at her boyfriend, only to feel her heart sink with guilt at the look of betrayal on his face.

"Even the bit about how I put two french fries up my nostrils to pretend I was a walrus but then sneeze-coughed super hard because of the salt?" he asked.

Kyouka put a hand over one of his (still on her shoulders). "No, because three minutes in the locker room isn't enough to go into that much detail," she said, and Denki breathed a sigh of relief.

"_But,"_ she continued, just as he was starting to retract his hands, and he stiffened up again. "I _did_ kinda… tell her about…" The rate at which she poked her jacks together increased, and she tightened her grip on his hand. "I _did_ kinda tell her about…" (She began mumbling very quickly at this point.) "_Ididkindatellherabouthowwekissed."_

There was a silence.

After a minute of this, Kyouka peeked at her boyfriend again. To her surprise, he seemed entirely unbothered by her confession, perhaps even a little relieved.

"Oh, is that all?" he asked.

Kyouka's face contorted into one of confusion. "Well… yeah," she said, unsure of anything else she could have said instead. His lack of betrayal left her feeling unsettled, as much as she knew admitting that to herself made her feel like a terrible person. "You seem really… I don't know, _chill_ about all this."

Denki grinned slyly, unsettling Kyouka even further.

"Of course," he said, leaning in. (Kyouka's heartbeat skyrocketed, thudding in her ears.) "What reason would I have to be embarrassed of showing my love to my girlfriend?"

Kyouka forced herself to keep a straight face as his entered her personal space (though _honestly,_ with those pretty eyes of his, she was unable to guarantee that it was not flushed to _hell_ and back). "I dunno, man," she said. "Maybe if you held a boombox outside my window and played cheesy 80s pop tunes because you thought I was mad at you and it was what you'd seen in the movies, we'd have a go-to answer for that."

Denki fell back on his butt and became indignant. "That was one time!"

"One time _less than two weeks ago,"_ she reminded him, cracking a smile. "And it was funny."

Denki sobered up. "Still, you should have told me Mina was asking about us and that you told her."

Kyouka's smile vanished as quickly as it came. "Yeah, you're right. I'm sorry."

"Thank you," said Denki, and they both moved on. "Anyway, you're _suuuuure_ I can't know _anything _about what's on your mind?" His face and tone made him seem like he was joking, but the fact that this was his _third time asking_ betrayed his true feelings of concern.

Kyouka inwardly sighed, mentally apologizing to Yaomomo. "All right, all right; I'll tell you," she said. "But I'm letting you know now I don't really know a lot."

Denki stole a pillow that had fallen from her bed, cuddled up with it, and gave her his full attention. "That's okay," he said.

The sight of Denki paying that much attention to her warmed Kyouka's little heart, knowing this was an honor not even his favorite subjects received all the time. "So over the summer, Yaomomo's parents threw a masquerade ball…"

* * *

**Tuesday, 8:45 p.m.  
**_**t**_**_₂_** _**= —3 days**_

There was a knock at the door, and Izuku, Ochako, and Iida all paused their little forum to stare at it.

"Yo, Midoriya!" called Kaminari from the other side. "Kyouka and I have some questions to ask you. Mind if we come in?"

Quick as a wink, Izuku was up and opening the door. "Of course, Kaminari-kun!" he said. Meanwhile, Ochako and Iida scooted around so that there was enough room at the little table for two more.

Kaminari surveyed the room for a second. "Were you guys in the middle of something? We didn't mean to interrupt."

"Nonsense, Kaminari-kun!" said Iida, his volume just shy of the line between indoor and outdoor voices. "We are always here for friends in need!"

"We were just talking about something that happened to Todoroki-kun over the summer," explained Ochako.

Jirou straightened up at this. "What happened to him over the summer?"

"Well, you see, he went to a big party over the summer, and he hasn't been the same since," said Ochako.

"We've been spending the last hour trying to confirm without a shadow of a doubt if that night was indeed the turning point for Todoroki's personality," added Izuku. "So far, the evidence seems to be in our favor."

"But we automatically table our own discussions when outside parties enter the forum with their own problems," said Iida. "So do tell us, what brings you—"

Jirou held up a hand to silence the class president, her face a mix of disbelief, excitement, and hopes raised higher than the sky. "No, I think our topics might be connected," she said. "Tell us more. Like, for example, was the party Todoroki attended perhaps a _masquerade?"_

The Dekusquad exchanged looks that acknowledged that this was their point of no return.

"It was," confirmed Izuku.

Before anyone else had the chance to get a word in, Jirou turned to Ochako and asked her, "You saw that new necklace Yaomomo got over the summer, right?"

Ochako sent her a quizzical look, not entirely following where this was going. "The one with the ring as its pendant, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, she got it at a _masquerade ball_ her parents threw over the summer." Kyouka leaned back and crossed her arms, satisfied with the bombshell she'd just dropped.

Izuku and Iida gasped, whereas Ochako became so excited she immediately began vibrating at a speed just barely visible to the human eye.

"You're not saying that Todoroki was the one to give it to her?" she asked.

"Let's not jump to conclusions, Uraraka-kun!" chided Iida.

"Iida-kun is right," said Izuku, pulling out his phone. "We need to get some evidence before we can call this a lead."

Five teenagers crowded themselves around Midoriya's tiny phone screen.

[20:49]

_**[Hero Deku]: hey, Todoroki-kun  
[Hero Deku]: remember that party you went to over the summer?**_

_[Shoto]: Yeah_

_**[Hero Deku]: it was a masquerade, right?**_

_[Shoto]: Yeah_

_**[Hero Deku]: did you meet anyone new there?**_

_[Shoto]: If i did, i wouldn't have been able to tell_

_**[Hero Deku]: well then what happens at a masquerade ball?**_

_[Shoto]: I just hung out with a girl named Yoru_

_**[Hero Deku]: Yoru?**_

Whatever explanation Todoroki had for them never mattered in the end, for as soon as he mentioned the name "_Yoru," _Jirou was already losing her mind, but in a good way.

"Guys. Guys, guys, guys," she half-shouted, desperately patting down her pockets in search of her temporarily misplaced cell phone. "_Guys. Guys, guys, guys, _like, _GUYS!"_

"We're listening, Jirou-kun," Iida patiently said.

"_Guys,"_ Jirou repeated yet again, only this time she managed to yank her phone out of her pocket and open it to her own text conversation with Momo. "Check this out," she said as she showed them all her phone screen.

_[A month ago]_

_**[Kyoukanut]: so what's his name?**_

_[Yaomomo (✿◡‿◡)]: Toki_

_**[Kyoukanut]: TOKI?**_

_[Yaomomo (✿◡‿◡)]: Not his real name  
[Yaomomo (✿◡‿◡)]: I told him to call me Yoru_

"Don't scroll down," Jirou snapped when Izuku tried to read more. "Or up for that matter. You can just ask _Toki_ here if you want to know more."

"This could just be a coincidence," Iida said, but it was finally Kaminari's turn to speak up.

"Pfft, what are the chances of _that_ happening?" he asked.

No one said anything. A minute passed, and suddenly the reality of what they had just figured out and confirmed hit them.

"Oh my god," Ochako said. "We need to tell them."

* * *

**Wednesday, 4:31 p.m.  
**_**t**_**_₂_** _**= —2 days**_

Eijirou was awoken by the gradual realization that there was no more warm body next to him. He didn't actually remember falling asleep (though really, who did?), but upon checking the clock, at least it wasn't another one of those three-hour naps. Today's classes had been intense, but not _that_ intense.

"And what the fuck do you dumb bitch bastards want?" Katsuki snapped, and suddenly, there were five more people in the room than Eijirou was prepared for.

"Baku, my dude, my guy, my _man!_ We're in desperate need of your manly homemaking skills!" said Denki, who also happened to glance over to where Eijirou was chilling. He flashed his classic million-watt smile and said, "'Sup, Ei."

Eijirou returned the Bro Nod of Greeting and said, "'Sup, Denki."

Katsuki loudly ground his teeth. "And _which, _**my guy, **manly homemaking skills might you be referring to?" he growled, taking special care to mock Denki's dialogue mannerisms.

"Bakugou-kun! If you continue to grind your teeth like that, you will strain your jaw and ruin your enamel!" Iida said, fearless as ever when it came to taking care of his classmates.

"Shutthefuckup."

"Well, you see, there's this thing that's been going on involving Yaomomo and Todoroki—" Denki began.

"Like I care about what Nerd One and Nerd Two get up to."

"Well you see, that's the _problem,_ Bakugou," Jirou said, bravely stepping between the two parties. "They're not getting up to _anything._ There's this complicated situation happening, but the point is that they _definitely_ like each other, but they don't _know_ that they like each other, so now we need to set them up."

"Like I give a shit. Just tell them and be done with it."

Eijirou decided that this was a good time to jump in, so he hopped on over to the group meeting and slung an arm over Katsuki's shoulder. "Come on, man. Let's have some fun with this! It's part of that _youthful high school experience!"_

(Five pairs of eyes gave him a funny look for that.)

Denki snatched a roll of paper out of Midoriya's hands and unfurled it with great energy. "Here's the epic plan," he said.

Eijirou tried his best to read it over Katsuki's shoulder, but no sooner had he gotten a good angle than did Katsuki burn it up with just a few drops of his own sweat.

"Absolutely not," he said. "That's never going to work; you need to think realistically."

"But—" Denki began.

It was right then that Mina shot through the door and into the room herself, her timing as impeccable as ever. "SORRY I COULDN'T BE HERE EARLIER I HAD TO TAKE THE ELEVATOR DOWN AND THEN ALL THE WAY BACK UP AGAIN TO GET TO THE BOYS' WING BUT ANYWAY MY ROMANCE-Y SENSES ARE A-TINGLING!" she shouted, skidding along the floor in a desperate attempt to decelerate.

Jirou and Uraraka immediately turned to each other and over the course of exactly one half-second, seemingly held an entire conversation in a language Eijirou could never even _hope _to understand: _girl telepathy. _

Whatever their points of contention had been, they both let out little sighs and turned to the pink puff ball of excitement bouncing around the room.

"We're trying to figure out how to get Yaomomo and Todoroki together," said Jirou, sounding so tired she might as well have been dead inside.

Mina, of course, more than made up for it. She had so much energy burst out of her in the seconds after Jirou's reveal that had it been any form of energy other than a shipper's heart going doki-doki, the dorms probably would have been flattened in a heartbeat.

"The main thing going on here is that Yaomomo's hiding an important ring from the world, and it's keeping them apart," Ochako added.

Mina cleared her throat and gripped her arms to calm down. "I have the _perfect _solution!"

"Here we fucking go," Katsuki mumbled under his breath, so Eijirou patted his head to express his sympathies.

"We'll have them play a game of _strip poker," _announced Mina, and there wasn't even a shred of shame in her voice, not a moment of hesitancy. Nope, none of that. She was entirely serious.

There wasn't even time for a beat of dumbfounded silence; everyone just started shouting from even the second the _s_ sound slipped out of her mouth.

"I _fucking_ called it. That is the most _awful_ idea that's ever popped out of Raccoon Eyes's mouth."

"Ashido-kun, I do not even know where to _begin_ the list of all the things wrong with your proposal!"

"Mina, we are _minors!"_

"I would prefer not to. I'm not even going to sarcastically say thank you; I would _literally _just prefer not to."

"F-f-f-first of all, Todoroki-k-kun would never ag-agree to that."

"Yay, yay, _whey!"_

Everyone turned to see that Kaminari had fried his own brain, probably to refrain from thinking about the idea and/or remembering it afterwards.

"Look at what you did now!" cried Jirou. "You killed my boyfriend!"

Mina visibly deflated. "All right, fine. Tell me what part you guys didn't like and we'll just take that out."

Everyone said, "_Everything." _(Except for Kaminari, who continued playing the idiot in the background.)

Mina sighed and mussed up her carefully crafted mop of hair. "Okay, fine, fine, fine. We'll all put our heads together and work something out like that."

"Not in here, you won't," snapped Katsuki. He wriggled his way out from under Eijirou's arm, and like a well-trained sheepdog, herded everyone but himself and his boyfriend out of the room. "Some of us have better things to do with our fucking lives."

The door shut. The two sat back down again.

Katsuki looked at Eijirou straight in the eye and said, "I'm only gonna say this one more time today. Are you listening?"

"Yup!"

"Inverse sine is _not_ the same as cosecant."

* * *

**Thursday, 6:07 p.m.  
**_**t**_**_₂_** _**= —1 day**_

Just to make sure, everyone involved in what Kyouka had dubbed, "The Peach Delivery Project" (as some convoluted pun literally no one would figure out without explanation) spent the day after the induction of Mina making sure they have all their cards right: that it was, without a shadow of a doubt, Todoroki and Momo who had been the long-lost friends-turned-maybe-lovers; that the two of them _hadn't_ yet figured out each other's identities; that they were even _hoping to meet again._ (And so on and so forth.) And even after that, Ochako and Midoriya had gone beyond (plus ultra) and gotten some more backstory out of Todoroki!

No matter how it would all go down in the end, no matter how anyone reacted, this was going to be insane.

Kyouka took a deep breath as she addressed the team. "All right. Everyone knows their roles for tomorrow night, right?"

There were assorted sounds of agreement.

She pointed at Iida. "What's your explanation for it only being a select few of Class 2-A?"

"The activities planned for this week's class game night are not appropriate for large-scale numbers of players, and so I have made the executive decision as Class Rep to divide us into three groups of six, with Bakugou-kun going to bed early and Shinsou-kun absent for extra lessons!" answered Iida, his hand gestures emphasizing his words with a sharp precision.

"Exactly. Denki, what's your excuse for not joining our group?"

"I'm gonna be recharging in my room half an hour before, get curious, stick a fork I stole from Lunch Rush into the wall socket, and whatever happens, happens," her boyfriend answered. "And whatever happens will probably incapacitate me."

"Perfect. I am so sorry you don't get to witness the greatness that goes down."

"Don't sweat it. I was prepared to make this sacrifice the second Iida said this works best with fewer people."

"I know this, and I love you."

"This is _disgusting; _get a _fucking_ room," snapped Bakugou.

"Your choice of expletives gives that sentence inappropriate connotations, Bakugou-kun," scolded Iida. "Take that back."

"No."

Kyouka facepalmed. "Bakugou, what even _is_ your role again?"

"I don't have one. I'm just here because Raccoon Eyes' incessant fangirling has made me disproportionally invested in all this."

"What the— If you're not going to _do anything, _then _why are you here?_ _**You even renounced the idea of this yesterday!"**_

"I fucking _told you!_ I've become _**disproportionally invested**_ in this _whole shitty idea_ because of _**Raccoon Eyes' incessant fucking fangirling!" **_Bakugou let off a small but aggressive explosion.

Kyouka buried her face in her hands. "Fine," she said. "You and Kiri can keep watch or something. You can figure out what that entails."

"Yeah!" cheered Kirishima. He held out a hand to Bakugou, who reluctantly high-fived it.

"I give up," sighed Kyouka. "Everyone, I have some final words for you before t equals zero tomorrow night."

Everyone tightened the circle and leaned in. Kyouka made eye contact with every single one of them and said:

"Don't fuck this up."

* * *

**Friday, 6:41 p.m.  
**_**t**_**_₂_** _**= —2 hours**_

"Small groups for game night?" Momo asked, staring at Iida with disbelief. She'd heard his entire explanation, but some terrified and suspicious part of her kept her from fully believing it.

"Yes. My deepest apologies for not informing you in advance," replied the class rep. "You will be playing in Ashido-kun's room, should you choose to participate."

Mina's room? Okay, _now_ she had a _real_ reason to be suspicious of the whole setup. Ever since she told the rest of the girls a basic overview of her ring's origin yesterday, she was under the impression that they were trying to set her up with Todoroki-kun.

Momo wasn't stupid. She figured out within the first few days of returning to class that Todoroki-kun had been her childhood friend. It all fit perfectly together when she thought about it. He was from another upper class family, so they would have attended the family parties long ago. The half mask was to hide the scar. He wore colored contacts he wasn't used to for the sake of disguising his identity, and probably a wig as well. There were other reasons she would never admit to anyone, not even herself, but the fact that she _hadn't _realized until they returned to school filled her with so much mortification that she'd simply become unable to address Todoroki and talk about it with him.

"Yaoyorozu-kun?" asked Iida, frowning at her out of concern. "Are you all right? You were zoning out."

Momo pursed her lips. As terrifying as the prospect sounded, it would be strange if the vice-representative and co-host of Friday game nights did not attend the class bonding event. Besides, it would be good to get all this cleared up as soon as possible. (Even if she didn't exactly have an answer to, "What are we?" yet.)

"Yes, I'm fine," she assured Iida. "I'll be there for sure!"

* * *

**Friday, 7:14 p.m.  
**_**t**_**_₂_** _**= —53 minutes**_

Truth or dare blackjack, huh? Shoto had never played blackjack before, but he was not one to turn down hanging out with his classmates for something as minor as rules he didn't yet know.

"All right," said Ashido, shuffling a pack of Pokémon-themed playing cards. "The person who scores the closest but not over twenty-one gets to pick a loser to do truth or dare. You lose a round if you go over twenty-one or total less than me. If all your cards in a round are black, I'm making up this cool new rule where that's called a 'Jack Black' where if you're a loser, you're granted immunity, and if you're a winner, you can pick two people for truth or dare."

"Wouldn't that name make a lot more sense if it actually involved the jacks?" Midoriya pointed out.

Ashido did that cool bridge card shuffling trick. "Perhaps," she said. "But that would basically be the same as not having the rule at all. Besides, I'll show you how uncommon it is already."

She began to deal, starting with her left with Jirou and going around the circle to Yaoyorozu, Uraraka, Midoriya, himself, then back to Jirou again so that they all had two cards, except for Ashido's none.

"Six and eight," Ashido said to Jirou.

Jirou looked around the circle, a drop of sweat already beading on her forehead. "Hit," she said.

Ashido put down a Jack of Clubs, Jirou swore, and the former moved on to Yaoyorozu. "Queen and two," she said. "So, twelve."

"Hit." Three of spades. Yaoyorozu bit her lip and thought for a minute. Mina continued shuffling repeatedly.

"Stay," she decided, and Ashido moved on to Uraraka.

"Stay," Uraraka said before Ashido could even announce her cards. "Also, this is a Jack Black."

Ashido stared at the cards— a nine and a king, both of clubs— and said, "I swear, this has never happened before when I'm dealing."

Shoto checked his own cards, a queen of spades and eight of clubs. "Uhhh, Ashido?"

"What?" she snapped. Then she saw his cards and sighed. "God damn it, Todoroki. Midoriya, nine and seven."

Midoriya flinched. "Oh! Stay."

Ashido continued to sigh as she finally dealt to herself.

"Uhhh, Mina, weren't you supposed to deal one card to yourself earlier?" Jirou asked.

"Probably, if we were playing like normal people," answered Ashido. "Two, seven, ten, total nineteen; Ochako, you win."

"Wait, what about me?" Shoto said, but Ashido sent him a dirty look.

"Oh, did you want to hit?" she asked, still shuffling. She handed him a six of spades from the top of the deck. "Whabam. Twenty-four, you lose."

"The fact that it's black still grants him immunity though," Midoriya pointed out.

Ashido's face went on a journey from annoyance to regret to so much annoyance she might have been in actual physical pain to more regret to a slightly dead inside acceptance. "Ochako-chan," she flatly said. "You win. Go, do the thing."

Uraraka scanned the group before settling.

"Kyouka, truth or dare?"

* * *

**Friday, 7:46 p.m.  
**_**t**_**_₂_** _**= —21 minutes**_

The game was playing out pretty normally, in Shoto's opinion. (Which probably shouldn't count for anything since this was his first time playing blackjack of any variation.) He'd won twice, after spending the first few rounds getting an idea of what the good gambles were, though he was abysmal as ever at trying to think up questions or dares.

In terms of what had already happened, though, well, he still couldn't say if that was normal or not. Yaoyorozu won most often, unsurprisingly. Jirou had a terrible losing streak due to her wild risk-taking and bad luck. Uraraka's wild risk-taking actually benefitted her maybe half the time. Midoriya had never once gone over twenty-one.

Shoto had lost track of how many rounds had passed; the game was a lot more fun than he'd anticipated. Although, after Uraraka had dared Yaoyorozu to create a false flower, he was now starting to suspect his friends had an ulterior motive.

"Momo," said Ashido as Jirou groaned at her terrible luck yet again. "King and five."

"Hit," Yaoyorozu answered. Three of spades. "Stay."

"Ochako, queen and seven."

"Stay."

"Midoriya, three and six."

"Hit." Three of hearts. "Hit." Five of diamonds. "Stay."

"Todoroki, eight and eight."

Shoto thought about it for a moment. They _were_ both black cards, so even if he lost, he wouldn't have to do anything. Still, if the breadcrumbs were leading to where he thought they were leading, he might want to gamble anyway. (There just _had_ to be a reason Yaoyorozu was blatantly ignoring him every time she won.) "Hit," he said.

Ashido tossed him a five of clubs and said, "Aw, shit. That's twenty-one."

* * *

**Friday, 7:47 p.m.  
**_**t**_**_₂_** _**= —20 minutes**_

Mina flipped over her cards and dealt until she was over seventeen, groaning when she died at twenty-six. The whole Jack Black idea probably hadn't been her finest (but then again, what idea of hers was?). Iida had told them earlier to wait a few rounds before maybe starting to push TodoMomo into each others' directions.

_**BUUUUT,**_ _Todoroki-kun_ just _had_ to go and get _four straight rounds_ of only black cards (and, by extension, truth-or-dare immunity), and _**THEEEEN, **_Yaomomo _also_ just had to get her _own_ two rounds of immunity, and seriously, why was it that whenever someone other than those two won, _they had immunity?_

Truly, not her finest work.

Mina began to scrape together the cards so she could reshuffle them. It wasn't that it was getting late, but she felt there was only so long they could keep playing this game before people either ran out of dares or the cards got boring, and that "so long" was probably little more than enough to say "thanks for all the fish."

It was just too bad that it should end like this.

At least, that's what ran through her head over the span of the two seconds it took for Todoroki to pick a victim.

"Yaoyorozu," he said, and suddenly, Mina was _very_ interested in the game.

"Yes?" Momo coyly replied _(and ohhhh dammit c'mon, Yaomomo, you know what's up, you KNOW what's up just EMBRACE IT!). _

"Truth or dare?"

(Mina was practically _bursting_ with excitement. The intensity! The drama! The _organicness of it all!_ She was on the _edge_ of her _seat_ here!)

Yaomomo looked uncomfortably around the circle (she was always so, so easy to read), and Mina didn't even _care_ that she'd stopped shuffling to stare wide-eyed at the theatrics playing out before her.

"...I need to go to the bathroom," Momo suddenly said, immediately standing up and heading towards the door.

"OH, _COME ON!"_ shouted Mina. She would have liked to say that happened against her better judgement, but she actually didn't judge that choice until _after _it had been made, so, uh, _whoops. _

It was too late anyway; Yaomomo was _gone._

Mina took stock of the rest of the group. Kyouka had hopped onto her phone, texting someone. IzuOcha was repeatedly looking back and forth between the door and each other. Tokidoki himself looked simultaneously as if he was at a loss and proven entirely right about something.

Kyouka shut off her phone. "Todoroki, you should just pick someone else then," she said, flashing Mina a look.

"Right!" said Mina, trying her best to hit the ground running. "Girls always take forever in the restroom. Let's just keep going without her until she comes back!"

* * *

**Friday, 7:48 p.m.  
**_**t**_**_₂_** _**= —19 minutes**_

Playing cards really was a great way to have fun on a Friday evening Like, now that Denki thought about it, it was the first time since getting with Kyouka that he'd been able to chill with just Katsuki, Eijirou, and Hanta as bros. Of course, Iida's presence meant that gambling was strictly forbidden, which sucked a bit of fun out of poker with the boys, but that did not erase the sheer volume of _chill_ that occupied the room in that moment.

Denki felt his phone buzz in his pocket.

[19:49]

_[Doki-Doki Music Club 33]: ymm just went to the bathroom  
[Doki-Doki Music Club 33]: someone go catch her now_

He looked up at the others and said, "It's go time, boys."

As if on cue, his phone vibrated again.

_[Doki-Doki Music Club 33]: she was kinda emotional send kiri_

Denki looked up again and said, "Okay, nevermind, not all of us. Kyo said just Kiri."

"On it!" Eijirou said, leaping up with enough energy to power the entire campus and dashing out the door.

There was a beat of silence.

"What was that all about?" Hanta asked, looking at everyone weirdly.

In that moment, Denki realized two things. One, Sero Hanta was now the token single person in the Bakusquad. (Mina didn't count because she was basically married to the concept of shipping at the moment.) Two, a fact that, for the past twenty-four hours, he felt like everyone knew (that Todoroki and Yaomomo had some stuff _going on)_ was not, in fact, a universal truth _as proven by Hanta having no god damn idea what was going on. _

"You will find out soon enough! Patience is a virtue, Sero-kun!" exclaimed Iida.

Katsuki snorted. "Yeah, and virtues are a grace."

"And Grace was a little girl who wouldn't wash her face," joked Denki.

He and Hanta cracked up. Iida sighed. They all let the sleeping dogs lie.

* * *

**Friday, 7:51 p.m.  
**_**t**_**_₂_** _**= —16 minutes**_

What was she so scared of? It was just Todoroki-san. She was probably wrong about him being Toki anyway. It was just a game of truth or dare. He probably just picked her because he hadn't before.

What was going on in her head? What was with these swirling, whirling thoughts occupying space in her mind? They did her no good; she wished they would leave.

She stood in front of the girls' bathroom door on the first floor, head still spinning. Really, she was better than this! She was more than just a static character that lived life as a status quo; she changed with her experiences and let herself grow!

So why was she so afraid to speak to Todoroki-san? Everything had been perfectly fine before tonight.

The memory of the summer night at the masquerade pushed its way to the front of her mind, and she could feel the pressure of the kiss_(es!)_ on her lips once more. Face burning, Momo buried her face in her hands and leaned against the wall. She'd done that; it was real; and she _could not kid herself at this point, _she _wished_ it had been with Todoroki.

How had this happened? They'd been friends before summer! And, because she had _clearly_ been merely projecting since then, by all measures, they should _still be_ friends now! After summer!

After the ball.

(It had been so romantic, so magical at the time. So _why_ was the memory of it so _mortifying_ now?)

"Oi, Yaoyorozu!"

It wasn't Todoroki, thank goodness. Momo popped out a couple matryoshkas to soothe herself and turned to face Kirishima.

"What happened to you, dude?" he asked.

As Momo weighed her options in her mind, she opened up a random matryoshka. They were so effortless to make that sometimes, she'd absently stick a random item into one.

A false rose, just the size for a subtle boutonniere, smiled back at her.

"So over the summer my parents threw a masquerade ball and while I was there I met this friend I made a really long time ago at another one of the parties my parents threw and we danced and it was nice and then stuff happened and we made out and it was wonderful and magical and everything I could have ever hoped for and more and you know I suddenly don't know why I'm telling you all this but—" she took a deeeeep breath, her first since starting to speak, actually— "you know what it's fine it's fine it's really fine anyway I'm pretty sure that my mystery boy was actually Todoroki and also he gave me a _ring_ that to find him again by and anyway now because of tonight's game night I feel like the _whole world_ is telling me to l_et him know _but I am _so embarrassed and afraid."_

Kirishima took a minute to digest all that.

Within those sixty seconds, hot, salty tears of _god_ knew what emotions began streaking down Momo's cheeks.

"Woah, woah, woah there," Kirishima said, a little tinge of panic making its way into his voice. "It's okay. Everything's going to work out. It's gonna be okay, man. I'm not gonna tell you to stop crying, 'cause, uh, crying is good for you. Even though now that I think about it you probably already know that."

Momo couldn't help but to laugh a little. "That sounds kind of like something Todoroki-san would say."

Kirishima relaxed a little. "Okay, so what are you afraid of right now?"

Momo bit her lip and stared at her shoes, digging her toe into the ground. That's what she wanted to know.

"I guess I'm afraid I'll regret what happens once he knows this is what I think, and that would… that would be embarrassing."

"Would you regret it if you never said anything at all?"

Would she? Probably in the future, when they parted ways. Or maybe if she saw him again at another party and he would have the sudden realization that she had the power to tell him the whole time but she _chose_ not to.

"Probably."

"So which would you rather regret? The outcome or the inaction?"

* * *

**Friday, 8:02 p.m.  
**_**t**_**_₂_** _**= —5 minutes**_

Yaomomo reentered the room just as Mina flipped over her second card to reveal a perfect total of twenty-one. The latter grinned (lady luck was on her side tonight after all, it seemed) and said, "Oh, Yaomomo, just in time! Truth or dare?"

Momo swallowed, probably trying to be subtle with how nervous she was, but Mina could read _all _the girls like _books. _"Dare," said Momo. Excellent, she didn't even object to the fact that she hadn't even played in the round.

If there was ever a time to push a ship together, it was now. "I dare you to show everyone your necklace."

Several feelings flashed across the other girl's face, one after another with the emotions blending around the edges. Hurt. Betrayal. Resignation. Fear. Acceptance.

Determination was written on her face as she then unhooked the clasp. Fear came back as soon as the chain was in her hand. Regret mixed itself in as she finally revealed its pendant, the ring.

She let go of the chain, letting the ring fall into Todoroki's hands as his eyes widened.

With her mission complete, her bravery reserves were depleted, and Yaomomo fled once more.

Everyone stared bug-eyed at Todoroki.

Kyouka was the first to stand. "Well, what are you waiting for, you useless god damn kitchen appliance?" she demanded. "Come on! Let's go! You need to follow her, _Toki."_

"Oh. Right. Let's go," he said, setting down his cards and jogging out the door.

Honestly, Mina was not sure how to react to all that. He did not react as dramatically as she'd hoped and/or dreamed of. If anything, he seemed largely unconcerned, albeit a little surprised.

Directly in front of her, Midoriya and Ochako let out a sigh of relief.

"We're not done in here," said Mina, dealing out the cards again, and somehow, in _some way, _miraculously dealing herself another perfect twenty-one. She smirked at the pair. "So, Ochako. Truth or dare?"

Ochako turned off to the side. "Oh, for fuck's sake," she mumbled, her face already a bright, tomato red.

Midoriya reached out in concern. "Um, Uraraka-kun?"

Ochako turned around, took his hand, and pulled him into a kiss. His eyes grew wider than the full moon at night because obviously, this was a surprising action, but as quickly as she had initiated it, Gravity Girl pulled away.

"Sorry," she said (not realizing that Midoriya was now floating towards the ceiling).

"N-no, it's okay," he replied (not noticing that he was now floating towards the ceiling). "It was just really sudden and un-foreshadowed, you know?"

"WOOHOOOOOOOO!" Mina cheered (not caring that Midoriya was now floating towards the ceiling). "Two for one deal today!"

* * *

**Friday, 8:04 p.m.  
**_**t**_**_₂_** _**= —3 minutes**_

Kyouka met her boyfriend back in the hall after ditching Todoroki to figure the rest out on his own (and provide her BFF some privacy). "'Sup," she said. They high-fived, though really that was just an excuse for Denki to pull her into a hug.

"Your hair smells nice," he said.

"Thanks," said Kyouka, though she was obviously being muffled. "You smell like burnt ozone."

"I'm offended," Denki replied, though really, he wasn't. "Mission accomplished?"

"Mission accomplished."

"Fuck yeah."

* * *

**Friday, 8:05 p.m.  
**_**t**_**_₂_** _**= —2 minutes**_

Meanwhile, back on Bakugou's balcony, Iida was desperately trying to drag Sero and Kirishima away from the railing, where they were trying to catch a glimpse of whatever was happening down below with equal desperation.

"No, come on, pleaaase, Iida?" Sero begged. "This is better than the soap operas Mina brings to the squad sleepovers!"

"That is _actually_ saying something," Kirishima added, wriggling to try and see around.

"Yeah, man! The couple's actually getting together here instead of waffling around for twenty-five thousand words or so!"

"Considering how little all of you listen to my reprimands when it comes to proper conduct between couples, it physically pains me to inform you that there will probably be other chances to witness similar in the future," Iida said. "However, this does not mean you should go around and use their private lives for your own personal entertainment!"

Finally, Bakugou himself entered the scene. "Oi, dunderfucks. Just leave them alone."

Sero sighed and turned around. "Ooookay," he said.

However, Kirishima started excitedly yelling at the exact same time, which made Sero and Iida also look back over the railing and start yelling too, albeit for different reasons.

Curious now, Bakugou himself trudged begrudgingly over to the rail to witness what everyone was making out to be a hugely momentous event.

He snorted, but still grinned. "God fucking damn. That took them for-fucking-ever." He leaned over the rail to better shout.

"GET A ROOM, DIPSHITS!"

* * *

**Friday, 8:06 p.m.  
**_**t**_**_₂_** _**= —1 minute**_

Somehow, the two of them ended up outside, alone together on the back porch of the dorm.

"The memory of kissing you back then at the masquerade is so embarrassing now," Momo said, sniffling a bit at the end. Autumn was coming quickly; it was easy to feel in the chilly night air.

"Oh. Sorry," Shoto said, unsure of what else he could say or do.

"Here, take it back," she said.

He'd grown since their first year, although she remained the same. All it meant was that she now had to go on her tippy toes to meet him for a kiss standing up.

This kiss was different from the heavy, emotional make out on the piano bench. It was quick, just two people's lips meeting for the briefest of seconds. A quick feeling of warmth and pressure, and it was done.

_**t**_**_₂_** _**= 0**_

Shoto stared at her, careful to pay attention to her features now that he could actually see them. "Hey," he said. "What are we?"

Momo's eyes shifted off to the side, and she blinked a couple times. "I don't know. Ask me in a different way."

Her hands were at his collar still, which made it hard for him to think properly. "Uhh. Do you want to be in a relationship?"

"Yes," she answered. Miraculously, she was calm all through this, despite her show and lament over how embarrassing it had all been last time. "Now ask the question."

Question? What question? What more was there to ask? "I honestly have no idea what you're talking about."

"The ring, Toki," she said.

"Oh," he said, fidgeting around a bit so that he could hand it to her properly despite their insanely close proximity. "Here you go."

Momo finally released his collar, took a step back, and accepted the ring a second time. As she looped the chain around her neck, it finally clicked in his mind.

"OH," he said.

"Yes?"

And then suddenly, he had to turn away, flustered.

"I like you," he mumbled, thinking about the way his mother had explained his transformed feelings with the patience of an amused, loving mother, and hoping she was correct because he had no idea what he was doing here. "Please be my girlfriend."

Momo placed a hand on his cheek and gently turned his head to face her.

"Of course," she said, and she lifted herself onto her tiptoes again.

* * *

**_Author's Note iv. _**_aaaand that's the end! you know, i thought this was gonna be the SHORT chapter. i haven't actually written this much this fast literally since i did the soul eater resbang in 2017. god that is actually an eternity ago._

_anyway wow so many references in here! from so long and thanks for all the fish to grace is a little girl who wouldn't wash her face (which is a quote from a book whose plot and title i don't even remember at this point lol). __fun fact in my original plans for this fic they were actually going to play strip blackjack bc the hidden necklace thing was smth that was inspired by a pokespe fic called _a miscellaneous tale of night and day_, and what happened in that fic is that one character roped a bunch of of other characters into playing strip blackjack so that the hidden necklace would be revealed. in the end, i decided i didn't like the idea of stripping (and also it would be kind of a stretch to keep everyone in character for that kind of thing), but the reason i specify the playing cards they use are pokemon-themed was as a nod to the source inspiration. (fun fact number two i played out several rounds of blackjack by myself to both get a feel for the game and have a realistic reference for writing)_

_anyway yeah. catch me on tumblr at **a-piece-of-shipping-trash**, or maybe check out some of my other works. (i recommend reading orchid in bloom that's my current peak tbh) whether you do either of those things or not, thanks as always for reading, please review, and have a greaaaaaat daaaaayyyy~~~_


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